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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/17292-0.txt b/17292-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..88df44b --- /dev/null +++ b/17292-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5463 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The New Frontiers of Freedom from the Alps +to the Ægean, by Edward Alexander Powell + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The New Frontiers of Freedom from the Alps to the Ægean + +Author: Edward Alexander Powell + +Release Date: December 12, 2005 [EBook #17292] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM *** + + + + +Produced by Marilynda Fraser-Cunliffe, Taavi Kalju and the +Online Distributed Proofreaders Europe at +http://dp.rastko.net. (This file was made using scans of +public domain works from the University of Michigan Digital +Libraries.) + + + + + + + + +_BY E. ALEXANDER POWELL_ + +THE NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM +THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY +THE LAST FRONTIER +GENTLEMEN ROVERS +THE END OF THE TRAIL +FIGHTING IN FLANDERS +THE ROAD TO GLORY +VIVE LA FRANCE! +ITALY AT WAR + +_CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS_ + + +[Illustration: THE QUEEN OF RUMANIA TELLS MAJOR POWELL THAT SHE ENJOYS +BEING A QUEEN] + + + + +THE NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM + +_FROM THE ALPS TO THE ÆGEAN_ + +BY + +E. ALEXANDER POWELL + + +NEW YORK +CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS +1920 + +COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY +CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS + +_Published April, 1920_ + + + +TO A REAL AND LIFELONG FRIEND +MAJOR J. STANLEY MOORE +OF THE DEPARTMENT OF STATE + + + + +AN ACKNOWLEDGMENT + + +Owing to the disturbed conditions which prevailed throughout most of +southeastern Europe during the summer and autumn of 1919, the journey +recorded in the following pages could not have been taken had it not +been for the active cooperation of the Governments through whose +territories we traveled and the assistance afforded by their officials +and by the officers of their armies and navies, to say nothing of the +hospitality shown us by American diplomatic and consular +representatives, relief-workers and others. From the Alps to the Ægean, +in Italy, Dalmatia, Montenegro, Albania, Macedonia, Turkey, Rumania, +Hungary and Serbia we met with universal courtesy and kindness. + +For the innumerable courtesies which we were shown in Italy and the +regions under Italian occupation I am indebted to His Excellency +Francisco Nitti, Prime Minister of Italy, and to former Premier +Orlando, to General Armando Diaz, Commander-in-Chief of the Italian +Armies; to Lieutenant-General Albricci, Minister of War; to Admiral +Thaon di Revel, Minister of Marine; to Vice-Admiral Count Enrice Mulo, +Governor-General of Dalmatia; to Lieutenant-General Piacentini, +Governor-General of Albania, to Lieutenant-General Montanari, commanding +the Italian troops in Dalmatia; to Rear-Admiral Wenceslao Piazza, +commanding the Italian forces in the Curzolane Islands; to +Lieutenant-Colonel Antonio Chiesa, commanding the Italian troops in +Montenegro; to Colonel Aldo Aymonino, Captain Marchese Piero Ricci and +Captain Ernesto Tron of the _Comando Supremo_, the last-named being our +companion and cicerone on a motor-journey of nearly three thousand +miles; to Captain Roggieri of the Royal Italian Navy, Chief of Staff to +the Governor-General of Dalmatia; to Captain Amedeo Acton, commanding +the "_Filiberto_"; to Captain Fausto M. Leva, commanding the +"_Dandolo_"; to Captain Giulio Menin, commanding the "_Puglia_," and to +Captain Filipopo, commanding the "_Ardente_," all of whom entertained us +with the hospitality so characteristic of the Italian Navy; to +Lieutenant Giuseppe Castruccio, our cicerone in Rome and my companion on +dirigible and airplane flights; to Lieutenant Bartolomeo Poggi and +Engineer-Captain Alexander Ceccarelli, respectively commander and chief +engineer of the destroyer "_Sirio_," both of whom, by their unfailing +thoughtfulness and courtesy added immeasurably to the interest and +enjoyment of our voyage down the Adriatic from Fiume to Valona; to +Lieutenant Pellegrini di Tondo, our companion on the long journey by +motor across Albania and Macedonia; to Lieutenant Morpurgo, who showed +us many kindnesses during our stay in Salonika; to Baron San Martino of +the Italian Peace Delegation; to Lieutenant Stroppa-Quaglia, attaché of +the Italian Peace Delegation, and, above all else, to those valued +friends, Cavaliere Giuseppe Brambilla, Counselor of the Italian Embassy +in Washington; Major-General Gugliemotti, Military Attaché, and +Professor Vittorio Falorsi, formerly Secretary of the Embassy at +Washington, to each of whom I am indebted for countless kindnesses. No +list of those to whom I am indebted would be complete, however, unless +it included the name of my valued and lamented friend, the late Count +V. Macchi di Cellere, Italian Ambassador to the United States, whose +memory I shall never forget. + +I welcome this opportunity of expressing our appreciation of the +hospitality shown us by their Majesties King Ferdinand and Queen Marie +of Rumania, who entertained us at their Castle of Pelesch, and of +acknowledging my indebtedness to His Excellency M. Bratianu, Prime +Minister of Rumania, and to M. Constantinescu, Rumanian Minister of +Commerce. + +I am profoundly appreciative of the honor shown me by His Majesty King +Nicholas of Montenegro, and my grateful thanks are also due to His +Excellency General A. Gvosdenovitch, Aide-de-Camp to the King and former +Minister of Montenegro to the United States. + +For the trouble to which they put themselves in facilitating my visit to +Jugoslavia I am deeply grateful to His Excellency M. Grouitch, Minister +from the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes to the United States, +and to His Excellency M. Vesnitch, the Jugoslav Minister to France. + +From the long list of our own country-people abroad to whom we are +indebted for hospitality and kindness, I wish particularly to thank the +Honorable Thomas Nelson Page, formerly American Ambassador to Italy; the +Honorable Percival Dodge, American Minister to the Kingdom of the Serbs, +Croats and Slovenes; the Honorable Gabriel Bie Ravndal, American +Commissioner and Consul-General in Constantinople; the Honorable Francis +B. Keene, American Consul-General in Rome; Colonel Halsey Yates, U.S.A., +American Military Attaché at Bucharest; Lieutenant-Colonel L.G. Ament, +U.S.A., Director of the American Relief Administration in Rumania, who +was our host during our stay in Bucharest, as was Major Carey of the +American Red Cross during our visit in Salonika; Dr. Frances Flood, +Director of the American Red Cross Hospital in Monastir, and Mrs. Mary +Halsey Moran, in charge of American relief work in Constantza, in whose +hospitable homes we found a warm welcome during our stays in those +cities; Reverend and Mrs. Phineas Kennedy of Koritza, Albania; Dr. Henry +King, President of Oberlin College, and Charles R. Crane, Esquire, of +the Commission on Mandates in the Near East; Dr. Fisher, Professor of +Modern History at Robert College, Constantinople; and finally of three +friends in Rome, Mr. Cortese, representative in Italy of the Associated +Press; Dr. Webb, founder and director of the hospital for facial wounds +at Udine; and Nelson Gay, Esquire, the celebrated historian, all three +of whom shamefully neglected their personal affairs in order to give me +suggestions and assistance. + +To all of those named above, and to many others who are not named, I am +deeply grateful. + +E. Alexander Powell. + +Yokohama, Japan, +February, 1920. + + + + +CONTENTS + + +CHAPTER PAGE + + AN ACKNOWLEDGMENT vii + + I ACROSS THE REDEEMED LANDS 1 + + II THE BORDERLAND OF SLAV AND LATIN 56 + + III THE CEMETERY OF FOUR EMPIRES 110 + + IV UNDER THE CROSS AND THE CRESCENT 155 + + V WILL THE SICK MAN OF EUROPE RECOVER? 176 + + VI WHAT THE PEACE-MAKERS HAVE DONE ON THE DANUBE 206 + + VII MAKING A NATION TO ORDER 243 + + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS + + +The Queen of Rumania tells Major Powell that she + enjoys being a Queen _Frontispiece_ + + FACING PAGE + +His first sight of the Terra Irridenta 12 + +The end of the day 20 + +A little mother of the Tyrol 20 + +Italy's new frontier 28 + +This is not Venice, as you might suppose, but Trieste 46 + +At the gates of Fiume 60 + +The inhabitants of Fiume cheering d'Annunzio and his raiders 78 + +His Majesty Nicholas I, King of Montenegro 124 + +Two conspirators of Antivari 130 + +The head men of Ljaskoviki, Albania, waiting to bid Major and + Mrs. Powell farewell 142 + +The ancient walls of Salonika 158 + +Yildiz Kiosk, the favorite palace of Abdul-Hamid and his + successors on the throne of Osman 194 + +The Red Badge of Mercy in the Balkans 208 + +The gypsy who demanded five lei for the privilege of taking + her picture 234 + +A peasant of Old Serbia 234 + +King Ferdinand tells Mrs. Powell his opinion of the fashion in + which the Peace Conference treated Rumania 240 + +The wine-shop which is pointed out to visitors as "the Cradle + of the War" 252 + + + + +THE NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM + + + + +CHAPTER I + +ACROSS THE REDEEMED LANDS + + +It is unwise, generally speaking, to write about countries and peoples +when they are in a state of political flux, for what is true at the +moment of writing may be misleading the next. But the conditions which +prevailed in the lands beyond the Adriatic during the year succeeding +the signing of the Armistice were so extraordinary, so picturesque, so +wholly without parallel in European history, that they form a sort of +epilogue, as it were, to the story of the great conflict. To have +witnessed the dismemberment of an empire which was hoary with antiquity +when the Republic in which we live was yet unborn; to have seen +insignificant states expand almost overnight into powerful nations; to +have seen and talked with peoples who did not know from day to day the +form of government under which they were living, or the name of their +ruler, or the color of their flag; to have seen millions of human +beings transferred from sovereignty to sovereignty like cattle which +have been sold--these are sights the like of which will probably not be +seen again in our times or in those of our children, and, because they +serve to illustrate a chapter of History which is of immense importance, +I have tried to sketch them, in brief, sharp outline, in this book. + +Because I was curious to see for myself how the countrymen of Andreas +Hofer in South Tyrol would accept their enforced Italianization; whether +the Italians of Fiume would obey the dictum of President Wilson that +their city must be Slav; how the Turks of Smyrna and the Bulgarians of +Thrace would welcome Hellenic rule; whether the Croats and Slovenes and +Bosnians and Montenegrins were content to remain pasted in the Jugoslav +stamp-album; and because I wished to travel through these disputed +regions while the conditions and problems thus created were still new, +we set out, my wife and I, at about the time the Peace Conference was +drawing to a close, on a journey, made largely by motor-car and +destroyer, which took us from the Adige to the Vardar and from the +Vardar to the Pruth, along more than five thousand miles of those new +national boundaries--drawn in Paris by a lawyer, a doctor and a college +professor--which have been termed, with undue optimism perhaps, the +frontiers of freedom. + +Some of the things which I shall say in these pages will probably give +offense to those governments which showed us many courtesies. Those who +are privileged to speak for governments are fond of asserting that +_their_ governments have nothing to conceal and that they welcome honest +criticism, but long experience has taught me that when they are told +unpalatable truths governments are usually as sensitive and resentful as +friends. Now it has always seemed to me that a writer owes his first +allegiance to his readers. To misinform them by writing only half-truths +for the sake of retaining the good-will of those written about is as +unethical, to my way of thinking, as it is for a newspaper to suppress +facts which the public is entitled to know in order not to offend its +advertisers. Were I to show my appreciation of the many kindnesses which +we received from governments, sovereigns and officials by refraining +from unfavorable comment on their actions and their policies, this book +would possess about as much intrinsic value as those sumptuous volumes +which are written to the order of certain Latin-American republics, in +which the authors studiously avoid touching on such embarrassing +subjects as revolutions, assassinations, earthquakes, finances, or +fevers for fear of scaring away foreign investors or depreciating the +government securities. + +It is entirely possible that in forming some of my conclusions I was +unconsciously biased by the hospitality and kindness we were shown, for +it is human nature to have a more friendly feeling for the man who +invites you to dinner or sends you a card to his club than for the man +who ignores your existence; it is probable that I not infrequently +placed the wrong interpretation on what I saw and heard, especially in +the Balkans; and, in those cases where I have rashly ventured to indulge +in prophecy, it is more than likely that future events will show that as +a prophet I am not an unqualified success. In spite of these +shortcomings, however, I would like my readers to believe that I have +made a conscientious effort to place before them, in the following +pages, a plain and unprejudiced account of how the essays in map-making +of the lawyer, the doctor and the college professor in Paris have +affected the peoples, problems and politics of that vast region which +stretches from the Alps to the Ægean. + +The Queen of the Adriatic never looked more radiantly beautiful than on +the July morning when, from the landing-stage in front of the Danieli, +we boarded the _vapore_ which, after an hour's steaming up the teeming +Guidecca and across the outlying lagoons, set us down at the road-head, +on the mainland, where young Captain Tron, of the Comando Supremo, was +awaiting us with a big gray staff-car. Captain Tron, who had been born +on the Riviera and spoke English like an Oxonian, had been aide-de-camp +to the Prince of Wales during that young gentleman's prolonged stay on +the Italian front. He was selected by the Italian High Command to +accompany us, I imagine, because of his ability to give intelligent +answers to every conceivable sort of question, his tact, and his +unfailing discretion. His chief weakness was his proclivity for +road-burning, in which he was enthusiastically abetted by our Sicilian +chauffeur, who, before attaining to the dignity of driving a staff-car, +had spent an apprenticeship of two years in piloting ammunition-laden +_camions_ over the narrow and perilous roads which led to the positions +held by the Alpini amid the higher peaks, during which he learned to +save his tires and his brake-linings by taking on two wheels instead of +four the hairpin mountain turns. Now I am perfectly willing to travel as +fast as any one, if necessity demands it, but to tear through a region +as beautiful as Venetia at sixty miles an hour, with the incomparable +landscape whirling past in a confused blur, like a motion-picture film +which is being run too fast because the operator is in a hurry to get +home, seems to me as unintelligent as it is unnecessary. Like all +Italian drivers, moreover, our chauffeur insisted on keeping his cut-out +wide open, thereby producing a racket like a machine-gun, which, though +it gave warning of our approach when we were still a mile away, made any +attempt at conversation, save by shouting, out of the question. + +Because I wished to follow Italy's new frontiers from their very +beginning, at that point where the boundaries of Italy, Austria and +Switzerland meet near the Stelvio Pass, our course from Venice lay +northwestward, across the dusty plains of Venetia, shimmering in the +summer heat, the low, pleasant-looking villas of white or pink or +sometimes pale blue stucco, set far back in blazing gardens, peering +coyly out at us from between the ranks of stately cypresses which lined +the highway, like daintily-gowned girls seeking an excuse for a +flirtation. Dotting the Venetian plain are many quaint and charming +towns of whose existence the tourist, traveling by train, never dreams, +their massive walls, sometimes defended by moats and draw-bridges, +bearing mute witness to this region's stormy and romantic past. Towering +above the red-tiled roofs of each of these Venetian plain-towns is its +slender campanile, and, as each campanile is of distinctive design, it +serves as a landmark by which the town can be identified from afar. +Through the narrow, cobble-paved streets of Vicenza we swept, between +rows of shops opening into cool, dim, vaulted porticoes, where the +townspeople can lounge and stroll and gossip without exposing themselves +to rain or sun; through Rovereto, noted for its silk-culture and for its +old, old houses, superb examples of the domestic architecture of the +Middle Ages, with faded frescoes on their quaint façades; and so up the +rather monotonous and uninteresting valley of the Adige until, just as +the sun was sinking behind the Adamello, whose snowy flanks were bathed +in the rosy _Alpenglow_, we came roaring into Trent, the capital and +center of the Trentino, which, together with Trieste and its adjacent +territory, composed the regions commonly referred to by Italians before +the war as _Italia Irredenta_--Unredeemed Italy. + +Rooms had been reserved for us at the Hotel Trento, a famous tourist +hostelry in pre-war days, which had been used as headquarters by the +field-marshal commanding the Austrian forces in the Trentino, signs of +its military occupation being visible in the scratched wood-work and +ruined upholstery. The spurs of the Austrian staff officers on duty in +Trent, as Major Rupert Hughes once remarked of the American staff +officers on duty in Washington, must have been dripping with furniture +polish. + +Trent--or Trento, as its new owners call it--is a place of some 30,000 +inhabitants, built on both banks of the Adige, in the center of a great +bowl-shaped valley which is completely hemmed in by towering mountain +walls. In the church of Santa Maria Maggiore the celebrated Council of +Trent sat in the middle of the sixteenth century for nearly a decade. On +the eastern side of the town rises the imposing Castello del Buon +Consiglio, once the residence of the Prince-Bishops but now a barracks +for Italian soldiery. + +No one who knows Trent can question the justice of Italy's claims to the +city and to the rich valleys surrounding it, for the history, the +traditions, the language, the architecture and the art of this region +are as characteristically Italian as though it had never been outside +the confines of the kingdom. The system of mild and fertile Alpine +valleys which compose the so-called Trentino have an area of about 4,000 +square miles and support a population of 380,000 inhabitants, of whom +375,000, according to a census made by the Austrians themselves, are +Italian. An enclave between Lombardy and Venetia, a rough triangle with +its southern apex at the head of the Lake of Garda, the Trentino, +originally settled by Italian colonists who went forth as early as the +time of the Roman Republic, was for centuries an independent Italian +prince-bishopric, being arbitrarily annexed to Austria upon the fall of +Napoleon. In spite of the tyrannical and oppressive measures pursued by +the Austrian authorities in their attempts to stamp out the affection of +the Trentini for their Italian motherland, in spite of the systematic +attempts to Germanicize the region, in spite of the fact that it was an +offense punishable by imprisonment to wear the Italian colors, to sing +the Italian national hymn, or to have certain Italian books in their +possession, the poor peasants of these mountain valleys remained +unswervingly loyal to Italy throughout a century of persecution. Little +did the thousands of American and British tourists who were wont to make +of the Trentino a summer playground, climbing its mountains, fishing in +its rivers, motoring over its superb highways, stopping in its great +hotels, realize the silent but desperate struggle which was in progress +between this handful of Italian exiles and the empire of the Hapsburgs. + +The attitude of the Austrian authorities toward their unwilling subjects +of the Trentino was characterized by a vindictiveness as savage as it +was shortsighted. Like the Germans in Alsace, they made the mistake of +thinking that they could secure the loyalty of the people by awing and +terrorizing them, whereas these methods had the effect of hardening the +determination of the Trentini to rid themselves of Austrian rule. Cæsare +Battisti was deputy from Trent to the parliament in Vienna. When war was +declared he escaped from Austria and enlisted in the Italian army, +precisely as hundreds of American colonists joined the Continental Army +upon the outbreak of the Revolution. During the first Austrian offensive +he was captured and sentenced to death, being executed while still +suffering from his wounds. The fact that the rope parted twice beneath +his weight added the final touch to the brutality which marked every +stage of the proceeding. The execution of Battista provided a striking +object-lesson for the inhabitants of the Trentino and of Italy--but not +the sort of object-lesson which the Austrians had intended. Instead of +terrifying them, it but fired them in their determination to end that +sort of thing forever. From Lombardy to Sicily Battista was acclaimed a +hero and a martyr; photographs of him on his way to execution--an erect +and dignified figure, a dramatic contrast to the shambling, sullen-faced +soldiery who surrounded him--were displayed in every shop-window in the +kingdom; all over Italy streets and parks and schools were named to +perpetuate his memory. + +Had there been in my mind a shadow of doubt as to the justice of Italy's +annexation of the Trentino, it would have been dissipated when, after +dinner, we stood on the balcony of the hotel in the moonlight, looking +down on the great crowd which filled to overflowing the brilliantly +lighted piazza. A military band was playing _Garibaldi's Hymn_ and the +people stood in silence, as in a church, the faces of many of them wet +with tears, while the familiar strains, forbidden by the Austrian under +penalty of imprisonment, rose triumphantly on the evening air to be +echoed by the encircling mountains. At last the exiles had come home. +And from his marble pedestal, high above the multitude, the great statue +of Dante looked serenely out across the valleys and the mountains which +are "unredeemed" no longer. + +[Illustration: HIS FIRST SIGHT OF THE TERRA IRRIDENTA + +King Victor Emanuel arriving at Trieste on a destroyer after its +occupation by the Italians] + +Though Italy's original claims in this region, as made at the +beginning of the war, included only the so-called Trentino (by which is +generally meant those Italian-speaking districts which used to belong to +the bishopric of Trent) together with those parts of South Tyrol which +are in population overwhelmingly Italian, she has since demanded, and by +the Peace Conference has been awarded, the territory known as the upper +Adige, which comprises all the districts lying within the basin of the +Adige and of its tributary, the Isarco, including the cities of Botzen +and Meran. By the annexation of this region Italy has pushed her +frontier as far north as the Brenner, thereby bringing within her +borders upwards of 180,000 German-speaking Tyrolese who have never been +Italian in any sense and who bitterly resent being transferred, without +their consent and without a plebiscite, to Italian rule. + +The Italians defend their annexation of the Upper Adige by asserting +that Italy's true northern boundary, in the words of Eugène de +Beauharnais, written, when Viceroy of Italy, to his stepfather, +Napoleon, "is that traced by Nature on the summits of the mountains, +where the waters that flow into the Black Sea are divided from those +that flow into the Adriatic." Viewed from a purely geographical +standpoint, Italy's contention that the great semi-circular barrier of +the Alps forms a natural and clearly defined frontier, separating her by +a clean-cut line from the countries to the north, is unquestionably a +sound one. Any one who has entered Italy from the north must have +instinctively felt, as he reached the summit of this mighty mountain +wall and looked down on the warm and fertile slopes sweeping southward +to the plains, "Here Italy begins." + +Italy further justifies her annexation of the German-speaking Upper +Adige on the ground of national security. She must, she insists, possess +henceforward a strong and easily defended northern frontier. She is +tired of crouching in the valleys while her enemies dominate her from +the mountain-tops. Nor do I blame her. Her whole history is punctuated +by raids and invasions launched from these northern heights. But the new +frontier, in the words of former Premier Orlando, "can be defended by a +handful of men, while therefore the defense of the Trentino salient +required half the Italian forces, the other half being constantly +threatened with envelopment." + +As I have already pointed out, the annexation of the Upper Adige means +the passing of 180,000 German-speaking Austrians under Italian +sovereignty, including the cities of Botzen and Meran; the ancient +centers of German-Alpine culture, Brixen and Sterzing; of Schloss Tyrol, +which gives the whole country its name; and, above all, of the Parsier +valley, the home of Andreas Hofer, whose life and living memory provide +the same inspiration for the Germans of Tyrol that the exploits and +traditions of Garibaldi do for the Italians. + +That Italy is not insensible to the perils of bringing within her +borders a _bloc_ of people who are not and never will be Italian, is +clearly shown by the following extract from an Italian official +publication: + +"In claiming the Upper Adige, Italy does not forget that the highest +valleys are inhabited by 180,000 Germans, a residuum from the +immigration in the Middle Ages. It is not a problem to be taken +light-heartedly, but it is impossible for Italy to limit herself only to +the Trentino, as that would not give her a satisfactory military +frontier. From that point of view, the basin of Bolzano (Bozen) is as +strictly necessary to Italy as the Rhine is to France." + +No one has been more zealous in the cause of Italy than I have been; no +one has been more whole-heartedly with the Italians in their splendid +efforts to recover the lands to which they are justly entitled; no one +more thoroughly realizes the agonies of apprehension which Italy has +suffered from the insecurity of her northern borders, or has been more +keenly alive to the grim but silent struggle which has been waged +between her statesmen and her soldiers as to whether the broad +statesmanship which aims at international good-feeling and abstract +justice, or the narrower and more selfish policy dictated by military +necessity, should govern the delimitation of her new frontiers. But, +because I am a friend of Italy, and because I wish her well, I view with +grave misgivings the wisdom of thus creating, within her own borders, a +new _terra irredenta_; I question the quality of statesmanship which +insists on including within the Italian body politic an alien and +irreconcilable minority which will probably always be a latent source of +trouble, one which may, as the result of some unforseen irritation, +break into an open sore. It would seem to me that Italy, in annexing the +Upper Adige, is storing up for herself precisely the same troubles which +Austria did when she held against their will the Italians of the +Trentino, or as Germany did when, in order to give herself a strategic +frontier, she annexed Alsace and Lorraine. When Italy puts forward the +argument that she must hold everything up to the Brenner because of her +fear of invasion by the puny and bankrupt little state which is all that +is left of the Austrian Empire, she is but weakening her case. Her +soundest excuse for the annexation of this region lies in her fear that +a reconstituted and revengeful Germany might some day use the Tyrol as a +gateway through which to launch new armies of invasion and conquest. +But, no matter what her friends may think of the wisdom or justice of +Italy's course, her annexation of the Upper Adige is a _fait accompli_ +which is not likely to be undone. Whether it will prove an act of wisdom +or of shortsightedness only the future can tell. + +The transition from the Italian Trentino to the German Tyrol begins a +few miles south of Bozen. Perhaps "occurs" would be a more descriptive +word, for the change from the Latin to the Teutonic, instead of being +gradual, as one would expect, is almost startling in its abruptness. In +the space of a single mile or so the language of the inhabitants changes +from the liquid accents of the Latin to the deep-throated gutturals of +the German; the road signs and those on the shops are now printed in +quaint German script; _via_ becomes _weg_, _strada_ becomes _strasse_, +instead of responding to your salutation with a smiling "_Bon giorno_" +the peasants give you a solemn "_Guten morgen_." Even the architecture +changes, the slender, four-square campaniles surmounted by bulging +Byzantine domes, so characteristic of the Trentino, giving place to +pointed steeples faced with colored slates or tiles. On the German side +the towns are better kept, the houses better built, the streets wider +and cleaner than in the Italian districts. Instead of the low, +white-walled, red-tiled dwellings so characteristic of Italy, the houses +begin to assume the aspect of Alpine chalets, with carved wooden +balconies and steep-pitched roofs to prevent the settling of the winter +snows. The plastered façades of many of the houses are decorated with +gaudily colored frescoes, nearly always of Biblical characters or +scenes, so that in a score of miles the traveler has had the whole story +of the Scriptures spread before him. They are a deeply religious people, +these Tyrolean peasants, as is evidenced not only by the many handsome +churches and the character of the wall-paintings on the houses, but by +the amazing frequency of the wayside shrines, most of which consist of +representations of various phases of the Crucifixion, usually carved and +painted with a most harrowing fidelity of detail. Occasionally we +encountered groups of peasants wearing the picturesque velvet jackets, +tight knee-breeches, heavy woolen stockings and beribboned hats which +one usually associates with the Tyrolean yodelers who still inflict +themselves on vaudeville audiences in the United States. As we sped +northward the landscape changed with the inhabitants, the sunny Italian +countryside, ablaze with flowers and green with vineyards, giving way to +solemn forests, gloomy defiles, and crags surmounted by grim, gray +castles which reminded me of the stage-settings for "Tannhäuser" and +"Lohengrin." + +Seen from the summit of the Mendel Pass, the road from Trent to Bozen +looks like a lariat thrown carelessly upon the ground. It climbs +laboriously upward, through splendid evergreen forests, in countless +curves and spirals, loiters for a few-score yards beside the margin of a +tiny crystal lake, and then, refreshed, plunges downward, in a series of +steep white zigzags, to meet the Isarco, in whose company it enters +Bozen. Because the car, like ourselves, was thirsty, we stopped at the +summit of the pass at the tiny hamlet of Madonna di Campiglio--Our Lady +of the Fields--for water and for tea. Should you have occasion to go +that way, I hope that you will take time to stop at the unpretentious +little Hotel Neumann. It is the sort of Tyrolean inn which had, I +supposed, gone out of existence with the war. The innkeeper, a jovial, +white-whiskered fellow, such as one rarely finds off the musical comedy +stage, served us with tea--with rum in it--and hot bread with honey, and +heaping dishes of small wild strawberries, and those pastries which the +Viennese used to make in such perfection. There were five of us, +including the chauffeur and the orderly, and for the food which we +consumed I think that the innkeeper charged the equivalent of a dollar. +But, as he explained apologetically, the war had raised prices terribly. +We were the first visitors, it seemed, barring Austrians and a few +Italian officers, who had visited his inn in nearly five years. Both of +his sons had been killed in the war, he told us, fighting bravely with +their Jaeger battalion. The widow of one of his sons--I saw her; a +sweet-faced Austrian girl--with her child, had come to live with him, he +said. Yes, he was an old man, both of his boys were dead, his little +business had been wrecked, the old Emperor Franz-Joseph--yes, we could +see his picture over the fireplace within--had gone and the new Emperor +Karl was in exile, in Switzerland, life had heard; even the Empire in +which he had lived, boy and man, for seventy-odd years, had disappeared; +the whole world was, indeed, turned upside down--but, Heaven be praised, +he had a little grandson who would grow up to carry the business on. + +[Illustration: A LITTLE MOTHER OF THE TYROL + +We gave her some candy: it was the first taste of sugar that she had had +in four years] + +[Illustration: THE END OF THE DAY + +A Tyrolean peasant woman returning from the fields] + +"How do you feel," I asked the old man, "about Italian rule?" + +"They are not our own people," he answered slowly. "Their language is +not our language and their ways are not our ways. But they are not an +unkind nor an unjust people and I think that they mean to treat us +fairly and well. Austria is very poor, I hear, and could do nothing for +us if she would. But Italy is young and strong and rich and the officers +who have stopped here tell me that she is prepared to do much to help +us. Who knows? Perhaps it is all for the best." + +Immediately beyond Madonna di Campiglio the highway begins its descent +from the pass in a series of appallingly sharp turns. Hardly had we +settled ourselves in the tonneau before the Sicilian, impatient to be +gone, stepped on the accelerator and the big Lancia, flinging itself +over the brow of the hill, plunged headlong for the first of these +hairpin turns. "Slow up!" I shouted. "Slow up or you'll have us over the +edge!" As the driver's only response to my command was to grin at us +reassuringly over his shoulder, I looked about for a soft place to land. +But there was only rock-plated highway whizzing past and on the outside +the road dropped sheer away into nothingness. We took the first turn +with the near-side wheels in the gutter, the off-side wheels on the +bank, and the car tilted at an angle of forty-five degrees. The second +bend we navigated at an angle of sixty degrees, the off-side wheels on +the bank, the near-side wheels pawing thin air. Had there been another +bend immediately following we should have accomplished it upside down. +Fortunately there were no more for the moment, but there remained the +village street of Cles. We pounced upon it like a tiger on its prey. +Shrilling, roaring and honking, we swooped through the ancient town, +zigzagging from curb to curb. The great-great-grandam of the village was +tottering across the street when the blast of the Lancia's siren pierced +the deafness of a century and she sprang for the sidewalk with the +agility of a young gazelle. We missed her by half an inch, but at the +next corner we had better luck and killed a chicken. + +Meran--the Italians have changed its official name to Merano, just as +they have changed Trent to Trento, and Bozen to Bolzano--has always +appealed to me as one of the most charming and restful little towns in +Europe. The last time I had been there, before the war-cloud darkened +the land, its streets were lined with powerful touring cars bearing the +license-plates of half the countries in Europe, bands played in the +parks, the shady promenade beside the river was crowded with +pleasure-seekers, and its great tourist hostelries--there were said to +be upwards of 150 hotels and _pensions_ in the town--were gay with +laughter and music. But this time all was changed. Most of the large +hotels were closed, the streets were deserted, the place was as dismal +as a cemetery. It reminded me of a beautiful house which has been closed +because of its owner's financial reverses, the servants discharged, the +windows boarded up, the furniture swathed in linen covers, the carpets +and hangings packed away in mothballs, and the gardens overrun with +weeds. At the Hotel Savoy, where rooms had been reserved for us, it was +necessary, in pre-war days, to wire for accommodations a fortnight in +advance of your arrival, and even then you were not always able to get +rooms. Yet we were the only visitors, barring a handful of Italian +commercial travelers and the Italian governor-general and his staff. The +proprietor, an Austrian, told me that in the four years of war he had +lost $300,000, and that he, like his colleagues, was running his hotel +on borrowed money. Of the pre-war visitors to Meran, eighty per cent. +had been Germans, he told me, adding that he could see no prospect of +the town's regaining its former prosperity until Germany is on her +financial feet again. Personally, I think that he and the other +hoteliers and business men with whom I talked in Meran were rather more +pessimistic than the situation warranted, for, if Italy will have the +foresight to do for these new playgrounds of hers in the Alps even a +fraction of what she has done for her resorts on the Riviera, and in +Sicily, and along the Neapolitan littoral, if she will advertise and +encourage and assist them, if she will maintain their superb roads and +improve their railway communications, then I believe that a few years, a +very few, will see them thronged by even greater crowds of visitors than +before the war. And the fact that in the future there will be more +American, English, French and Italian visitors, and fewer Germans, will +make South Tyrol a far pleasanter place to travel in. + +The Italians are fully alive to the gravity of the problems which +confront them in attempting to assimilate a body of people, as +courageous, as sturdily independent, and as tenacious of their +traditional independence as these Tyrolean mountaineers--descendants of +those peasants, remember, who, led by Andreas Hofer, successfully defied +the dictates of Napoleon. Though I think that she is going about the +business of assimilating these unwilling subjects with tact and common +sense, I do not envy Italy her task. Generally speaking, the sympathy of +the world is always with a weak people as opposed to a strong one, as +England discovered when she attempted to impose her rule upon the Boers. +Once let the Italian administration of the Upper Adige permit itself to +be provoked into undue harshness (and there will be ample provocation; +be certain of that); once let an impatient and over-zealous +governor-general attempt to bend these stubborn mountaineers too +abruptly to his will; let the local Italian officials provide the +slightest excuse for charges of injustice or oppression, and Italy will +have on her hands in Tyrol far graver troubles than those brought on by +her adventure in Tripolitania. + +Though the Government has announced that Italian must become the +official language of the newly acquired region, and that used in its +schools, no attempt will be made to root out the German tongue or to +tamper with the local usages and customs. The upper valleys, where +German is spoken, will not, however, enjoy any form of local autonomy +which would tend to set their inhabitants apart from those of the lower +valleys, for it is realized that such differential treatment would only +serve to retard the process of unification. All of the new districts, +German and Italian-speaking alike, will be included in the new province +of Trent. It is entirely probable that Italy's German-speaking subjects +of the present generation will prove, if not actually irreconcilable, at +least mistrustful and resentful, but, by adhering to a policy of +patience, sympathy, generosity and tact, I can see no reason why the +next generation of these mountaineers should not prove as loyal Italians +as though their fathers had been born under the cross of the House of +Savoy instead of under the double-eagle of the Hapsburgs. + +We crossed the Line of the Armistice into Austria an hour or so beyond +Meran, the road being barred at this point by a swinging beam, made +from the trunk of a tree, which could be swung aside to permit the +passage of vehicles, like the bar of an old-fashioned country toll-gate. +Close by was a rude shelter, built of logs, which provided sleeping +quarters for the half-company of infantry engaged in guarding the pass. +One has only to cross the new frontier to understand why Italy was so +desperately insistent on a strategic rectification of her northern +boundary, for whereas, before the war, the frontier ran through the +valleys, leaving the Austrians atop the mountain wall, it is now the +Italians who are astride the wall, with the Austrians in the valleys +below. + +[Illustration: ITALY'S NEW FRONTIER + +A sharp turn on the highroad over the Brenner Pass] + +No sooner had we crossed the Line of the Armistice than we noticed an +abrupt change in the attitude of the population. Even in the +German-speaking districts of the Trentino the inhabitants with whom we +had come in contact had been courteous and respectful, though whether +this was because of, or in spite of, the fact that we were traveling in +a military car, accompanied by a staff-officer, I do not know. Now that +we were actually in Austria, however, this atmosphere of seeming +friendliness entirely disappeared, the men staring insolently at us +from under scowling brows, while the women and children, who had less to +fear and consequently were bolder in expressing their feelings, +frequently shouted uncomplimentary epithets at us or shook their fists +as we passed. + +Under the terms of the Armistice, Innsbruck, the capital of Tyrol, was +temporarily occupied by the Italians, who sent into the city a +comparatively small force, consisting in the main of Alpini and +Bersaglieri. Innsbruck was one of the proudest cities of the Austrian +Empire, its inhabitants being noted for their loyalty to the Hapsburgs, +yet I did not observe the slightest sign of resentment toward the +Italian soldiers, who strolled the streets and made purchases in the +shops as unconcernedly as though they were in Milan or Rome. The +Italians, on their part, showed the most marked consideration for the +sensibilities of the population, displaying none of the hatred and +contempt for their former enemies which characterized the French armies +of occupation on the Rhine. + +We found that rooms had been reserved for us at the Tyroler Hof, before +the war one of the famous tourist hostelries of Europe, half of which +had been taken over by the Italian general commanding in the Innsbruck +district and his staff. Food was desperately scarce in Innsbruck when we +were there and, had it not been for the courtesy of the Italian +commander in sending us in dishes from his mess, we would have had great +difficulty in getting enough to eat. A typical dinner at the Tyroler Hof +in the summer of 1919 consisted of a mud-colored, nauseous-looking +liquid which was by courtesy called soup, a piece of fish perhaps four +times the size of a postage-stamp, a stew which was alleged to consist +of rabbit and vegetables but which, from its taste and appearance, might +contain almost anything, a salad made of beets or watercress, but +without oil, and for dessert a dish of wild berries, which are abundant +in parts of Tyrol. There was an extra charge for a small cup of black +coffee, so-called, which was made, I imagine, from acorns. This, of +course, was at the best and highest-priced hotels in Innsbruck; at the +smaller hotels the food was correspondingly scarcer and poorer. + +Though the inhabitants of the rural districts appeared to be moderately +well fed, a majority of the people of Innsbruck were manifestly in +urgent need of food. Some of them, indeed, were in a truly pitiable +condition, with emaciated bodies, sunken cheeks, unhealthy complexions, +and shabby, badly worn clothes. The meager displays in the shop-windows +were a pathetic contrast to variety and abundance which characterized +them in ante-bellum days, the only articles displayed in any profusion +being picture-postcards, objects carved from wood and similar souvenirs. +The windows of the confectionery and bake-shops were particularly +noticeable for the paucity of their contents. I was induced to enter one +of them by a brave window display of hand-decorated candy boxes, but, +upon investigation, it proved that the boxes were empty and that the +shop had had no candy for four years. The prices of necessities, such as +food and clothing, were fantastic (I saw advertisements of stout, +all-leather boots for rent to responsible persons by the day or week), +but articles of a purely luxurious character could be had for almost +anything one was willing to offer. In one shop I was shown German +field-glasses of high magnification and the finest makes for ten and +fifteen dollars a pair. The local jewelers were driving a brisk trade +with the Italian soldiers, who were lavish purchasers of Austrian war +medals and decorations. Captain Tron bought an Iron Cross of the second +class for the equivalent of thirty cents. + +We left Innsbruck in the early morning with the intention of spending +that night at Cortina d'Ampezzo, but, owing to our unfamiliarity with +the roads and to delays due to tire trouble, nightfall found us lost in +the Dolomites. For mile after mile we pushed on through the darkness +along the narrow, slippery mountain roads, searching for a shelter in +which to pass the night. Occasionally the twin beams from our lamps +would illumine a building beside the road and we, chilled and hungry, +would exclaim "A house at last!" only to find, upon drawing nearer, +that, though it had evidently been once a habitation, it was now but a +shattered, blackened shell, a grim testimonial to the accuracy of +Austrian and Italian gunners. It was late in the evening and bitterly +cold, before, rounding a shoulder of the mountain up whose steep +gradients the car seemed to have been panting for ages, we saw in the +distance the welcome lights of the hamlet of Santa Lucia. + +I do not think that the public has the slightest conception of the +widespread destruction and misery wrought by the war in these Alpine +regions. In nearly a hundred miles of motoring in the Cadore, formerly +one of the most delightful summer playgrounds in all Europe, we did not +pass a single building with a whole roof or an unshattered wall. The +hospitable wayside inns, the quaint villages, the picturesque peasant +cottages which the tourist in this region knew and loved are but +blackened ruins now. And the people are gone too--refugees, no doubt, in +the camps which the Government has erected for them near the larger +towns. One no longer hears the tinkle of cow-bells on the mountain +slopes, peasants no longer wave a friendly greeting from their doors: it +is a stricken and deserted land. But Cortina d'Ampezzo, which is the +_cheflieu_ of the Cadore, though still showing many traces of the +shell-storms which it has survived, was quickening into life. The big +tourist hotels at either end of the town, behind which the Italians +emplaced their heavy guns, were being refurnished in anticipation of the +resumption of summer travel and the little shops where they sell +souvenirs were reopening, one by one. But the losses suffered by the +inhabitants of these Alpine valleys, desperately serious as they are to +them, are, after all, but insignificant when compared with the enormous +havoc wrought by the armies in the thickly settled Friuli and on the +rich Venetian plains. Every one knows, presumably, that Italy had to +draw more heavily upon her resources than any other country among the +Allies _(did you know that she spent in the war more than four-fifths of +her total national wealth?_) and that she is bowed down under an +enormous load of taxation and a staggering burden of debt. But what has +been largely overlooked is that she is faced by the necessity of +rebuilding a vast devastated area, in which the conditions are quite as +serious, the need of assistance fully as urgent, as in the devastated +regions of Belgium and France. + +Probably you were not aware that a territory of some three and a half +million acres, occupied by nearly a million and a half people, was +overrun by the Austrians. More than one-half of Venetia is comprised in +that region lying east of the Piave where the wave of Hunnish invasion +broke with its greatest fury. The whole of Udine and Belluno, and parts +of Treviso, Vicenza and Venice suffered the penalty of standing in the +path of the Hun. They were prosperous provinces, agriculturally and +industrially, but now both industry and agriculture are almost at a +standstill, for their factories have been burned, their machinery +wrecked or stolen, their livestock driven off and their vineyards +destroyed. The damage done is estimated at 500 million dollars. It is +unnecessary for me to emphasize the seriousness of the problem which +thus confronts the Italian Government. Not only must it provide food and +shelter for the homeless--a problem which it has solved by the erection +of great numbers of wooden huts somewhat similar to the barracks at the +American cantonments--but a great amount of livestock and machinery must +be supplied before industry can be resumed. At one period there was such +desperate need of fuel that even the olive trees, one of the region's +chief sources of revenue, were sacrificed. The Italians have set about +the task of regeneration with an energy that discouragement cannot +check. But the undertaking is more than Italy can accomplish unaided, +for the resources of her other provinces are seriously depleted. We are +fond of talking of the debt we owe to Italy, not merely for her +sacrifices in the war, but for all that she has given us in art and +music and literature. Now is the time to show our gratitude. + +From Cortina, which is Italian now, we swung toward the north again, +re-crossed the Line of the Armistice at Tarvis, and, just as night was +falling, came tearing into Villach, which, like Innsbruck, was occupied, +under the terms of the Armistice, by Italian troops. We had great +difficulty in obtaining rooms in Villach, not because there were no +rooms but because we were accompanied by an Italian officer and were +traveling in an Italian car. The proprietors of five hotels, upon seeing +Captain Tron's uniform, curtly declared that every room was occupied. It +was nearly midnight before we succeeded in finding shelter for the +night, and this was obtained only when I made it amply clear to the +Austrian proprietor of the only remaining hotel in the town that we were +not Italians but Americans. The unpleasant impression produced by the +coolness of our reception in Villach was materially increased the +following morning, when Captain Tron greeted us with the news that all +of our luggage, which we had left on the car, had been stolen. It +seemed that thieves had broken into the courtyard of the barracks, where +the car had been locked up for the night, and, in spite of the fact that +the chauffeur was asleep in the tonneau, had stripped it of everything, +including the spare tires. I learned afterwards that robberies of this +sort had become so common since the war as scarcely to provoke comment, +portions of Austria being terrorized by gangs of demobilized soldiers +who, taking advantage of the complete demoralization of the machinery of +government, robbed farmhouses and plundered travelers at will. It is +much the same form of lawlessness, I imagine, which manifested itself +immediately after the close of the Napoleonic Wars, when bands of +discharged soldiers sought in robbery the excitement and booty which +they had formerly found under the eagles. Though the local police +authorities attempted to condone the robbery on the ground that it was +due to the appalling poverty of the population, this excuse did not +reconcile my wife to the loss of her entire wardrobe. As she remarked +vindictively, she felt certain that the inhabitants of Villach were +called Villains. + +I wished to visit Klagenfurt, the ancient capital of Carinthia, which is +about twenty miles beyond Villach, because at that time the town, which +is a railway junction of considerable strategic and commercial +importance, threatened to provide the cause for an open break between +the Jugoslavs and the Italians. Though the Italians did not demand the +town for themselves, they had vigorously insisted that, instead of being +awarded to Jugoslavia, it should remain Austrian, for, with the triangle +of which Klagenfurt is the center in the possession of the Jugoslavs, +they would have driven a wedge between Italy and Austria and would have +had under their control the immensely important junction-point where the +main trunk line from Venice to Vienna is joined by the line coming up +from Fiume and Trieste. The Jugoslavs, recognizing that the possession +of Klagenfurt would give them virtual control of the principal railway +entering Austria from the south, and that such control would probably +enable them to divert much of Austria's traffic from the Italian ports +of Venice and Trieste to their own port of Fiume, which they +confidently expected would be awarded them by the Peace Conference, lost +no time in occupying the town with a considerable force of troops. They +further justified this occupation by asserting that Jugoslavia was +entitled to Carinthia on ethnological grounds and that the inhabitants +of Klagenfurt were clamoring for Jugoslav rule. In view of these +developments, I had expected to find Jugoslav soldiery in the town, but +I had not expected to be challenged, a mile or so outside the town, by a +sentry who was, judging from his appearance, straight from a _comitadji_ +band in the Macedonian mountains. He was a sullen-faced fellow wearing a +fur cap and a nondescript uniform, with an assortment of weapons thrust +in his belt, according to the custom of the Balkan guerrillas, and with +two bandoliers, stuffed with cartridges, slung across his chest. He was +as incongruous a figure in that pleasant German countryside as one of +Pancho Villa's bandits would have been in the Connecticut Valley. And +Klagenfurt, which is a well-built, well-paved, thoroughly modern +Austrian town, was occupied by several hundred of his fellows, brought +from somewhere in the Balkans, I should imagine, for the express +purpose of aweing the population. It was perfectly apparent that the +inhabitants, far from welcoming these fierce-looking fighters as +brother-Slavs and friends, were only too anxious to have them take their +departure, having about as much in common with them, in appearance, +manners and speech, as a New Englander has with an Apache Indian. So +great was the tension existing in Klagenfurt that a commission had been +sent by the Peace Conference to study the question on the spot, its +members communicating with the Supreme Council in Paris by means of +American couriers, slim young fellows in khaki who wore on their arms +the blue brassard, embroidered with the scales of justice, which was the +badge of messengers employed by the Peace Commission. + +A few miles outside of Klagenfurt my attention was attracted by an iron +paling, in a field beside the road, enclosing a gigantic chair carved +from stone. My curiosity aroused, I stopped the car to examine it. From +a faded inscription attached to the gate I learned that this was the +crowning chair of the Dukes of Carinthia, in which the ancient rulers of +this region had sat to be crowned. There it stands in a field beside +the highway, neglected and forgotten, a curious link with a picturesque +and far-distant past. + +Our route from Klagenfurt led back through Villach to Tarvis and thence +over the Predil Pass to the Friuli plain and Udine, a journey which we +expected to accomplish in a single day; but there were delays in +re-crossing the Line of the Armistice and other and more serious delays +in the mountains, caused by torrential rains which had in places washed +out the road, so that it was already nightfall when, emerging from the +gloomy defile of the Predil Pass, we saw before us the twinkling lights +of the Alpini cantonment at Caporetto, that mountain hamlet of black +memories where, in the summer of 1917, the Austro-German armies, aided +by bad Italian generalship and Italian treachery, smashed through the +Italian lines and forced them back in a headlong retreat which was +checked only by the heroic stand on the Piave. The Caporetto disaster +would have broken the hearts and annihilated the resistance of a less +courageous people than the Italians. Yet the Italian army, shattered and +disorganized as it was, stopped the triumphant progress of the +invaders; stopped it almost without artillery or ammunition, for +hundreds of guns had been abandoned during the retreat; stopped it with +the bodies of Italy's youth, the boys fresh from the training-camps, the +class of 1919, called to the colors two years before their time! They +stopped that victorious rush upon the line of the Piave, a broad, +shallow stream meandering through a flat plain with never a height to +command the enemy's positions, never a physical feature of the terrain +to satisfy the requirements of strategy. Not only was the line of the +Piave held by the Italians against the advice of their Allies, but it +was held in defiance of all the lessons taught by Italian history, for +that the Piave could not be successfully defended has been the judgment +of every military leader since first the barbarians began to sweep down +from the Alps to lay waste the rich Venetian plain. The Italians made +their heroic stand, moreover, without any help from their Allies. That +help came later, it is true, but only after the stand had been made. You +doubt this? Then read this extract from the report of General the Earl +of Caven, who commanded the Allied troops sent to the aid of the +Italians: + +"In 1917, in the terrible days which followed the disaster at Caporetto, +I saw, just after my arrival at Venice, the Italian army in full +retreat, and I became convinced that a recovery was impossible before +the arrival of sufficient reenforcement from France and England. But I +was deceived, for shortly afterward I saw the Italian army, which had +seemed to be in the advanced stages of an utter rout, form a solid line +on the Piave and hold it with miraculous persistence, permitting the +English and French reenforcements to take up the positions assigned to +them without once coming in contact with the enemy." + +I have heard it said by critics of Italy that the retreat from Caporetto +showed the lack of courage of the Italian soldier. To gauge the courage +of an army a single disaster is as unjust as it is unintelligent. Was +the rout of the Federal forces at Bull Run a criterion of their behavior +in the succeeding years of the Civil War? Was the surrender at Sedan a +true indication of the fighting ability of the French soldier? Every +nation has had its disasters and has had to live them down. Italy did +this when, on the banks of Piave, she turned her greatest disaster into +her most glorious triumph. + +Because it was my privilege to be with the Italian army in the field +during various periods of the war, and because I know at first-hand +whereof I speak, I regret and resent the disparagement of the Italian +soldier which has been so freely indulged in since the Armistice. It may +be, of course, that you do not fully realize the magnitude of Italy's +sacrifices and achievements. Did you know, for example, that Italy held +a front longer than the British, Belgian, French and American fronts put +together? Did you know that out of a population of 37 millions she put +into the field an army of 5 million men, whereas France and her +colonies, with nearly double the population, was never able to raise +more than 5,064,000, a considerable proportion of which were black and +brown men? Did you know that in forty-one months of war Italy lost +541,000 in dead and 953,000 in wounded, and that, unlike France and +England, her armies were composed wholly of white men? Did you know +that, in spite of all that has been said about the Allies giving her +assistance, Italy at all times had more troops on the Western front than +the Allies had on the Italian? Did you know that she called up the +class of 1919 two years before their time, a measure which even France, +hard-pressed as she was, did not feel justified in taking? (I have +mentioned this before, but it will bear repetition.) Have you stopped to +think that she was the only one of the Allied nations which won a +clean-cut and decisive victory, when, on the Piave, she attacked with 51 +divisions an Austro-German army of 63 divisions, completely smashed it, +forced its surrender, and captured half a million prisoners? Did you +know that she lost more than fifty-seven per cent, of her merchant +tonnage, while England lost less than forty-three per cent, and France +less than forty per cent.? And, finally, had you realized that Italy +made greater sacrifices, in proportion to her resources and population, +than any other country engaged in the war, having devoted four-fifths of +her entire national wealth to the prosecution of the struggle? There is +your answer, chapter and verse, for the next man who sneeringly remarks, +"The Italians didn't do much, did they?" + +Just as the Trentino and the Upper Adige have been added to the kingdom +as the Province of Trent, so the redeemed regions of which Trieste is +the center, including the towns of Gorizia, Monfalcone, Capodistria, +Parenzo, Pirano, Rovigno and Pola, have been consolidated in the new +province of Julian Venetia, with about a million inhabitants and an area +of approximately 6,000 square miles. + +[Illustration: THIS IS NOT VENICE, AS YOU MIGHT SUPPOSE, BUT TRIESTE + +The sails of the fishing craft are of many colors, yellow, burnt-orange, +vermilion. At the head of the canal, its stately columns reflected in +the turquoise waters, the Bourse rises like some ancient Roman temple] + +Trieste, which, with its suburbs, has a population of not far from +400,000, with its splendid terminal facilities, its vast harbor-works, +its dry-docks and foundries, its railway communications with the +hinterland, and, above all else, its position as the natural outlet for +the trade of Austria, Bavaria and Czecho-Slovakia, constitutes not only +Italy's most valuable prize of war, but, everything considered, probably +the most important city, commercially at least, to change hands as a +result of the conflict. Curiously enough, Trieste is the least +interesting city of its size, from a visitor's point of view, that I +know. Venice always reminds me of a beautiful and charmingly gowned +woman, perpetually young, interested in art, in music, in literature, +always ready for a stroll, a dance or a flirtation. Trieste, on the +contrary, is a busy, preoccupied, rather brusque business man, wholly +self-made, who has never devoted much time to devote to pleasure because +he has been too busy making his fortune. Venice says, "If you want a +good time, let me show you how to spend your money." But Trieste growls, +"If you want to get rich, let me show you how to invest your money." The +city has broad and well-kept streets bordered by the same sort of +four-and five-and six-story buildings of brick and stone which you find +in any European commercial city; it has several unusually spacious +piazzas on which front some really pretentious buildings; it has a few +arches and doorways dating from the Roman period, though far better ones +can be found in almost any town on the Italian peninsula; on the hill +commanding the city there are an old Austrian fort and an ancient +church, both chiefly interesting for the views they command of the +harbor and the coast of Istria; some of the most abominably rough +pavements which I have ever encountered in any city; one hotel which +just escapes being excellent and several which do not escape being bad; +and a harbor, together with the wharves and moles and machinery which go +with it, which is the Triestino's pride and joy. + +To my way of thinking the most interesting sight in Trieste is a small +château, built in the castellated fashion which had a considerable vogue +in America shortly after the close of the Civil War, which stands amid +most beautiful gardens on the edge of the sea, two or three miles to the +west of the city. This is the Château of Miramar, formerly the residence +of the young Austrian Archduke Maximilian, who, dazzled by the dream of +life on an imperial throne, accepted an invitation to become Emperor of +Mexico and a few years later fell before a Mexican firing-party on the +slopes of Queretaro. Though the château has now passed into the +possession of the Italian Government it is still in charge of the aged +custodian who, as a youth, was body-servant to Maximilian. Barring the +fact that the paintings and certain pieces of furniture had been removed +to Vienna to save from injury by aerial bombardment, the interior of the +château is much as Maximilian left it when he set out with his bride, +Carlotta, the sister of the late King Leopold of the Belgians, on his +ill-fated adventure. In the study on the ground floor hangs a +photograph, still sharp and clear after the lapse of half a century, of +the members of the delegation--swarthy men in the high cravats and long +frock-coats of the period, some of them wearing the stars and sashes of +orders--who came to Miramar to offer Maximilian the Mexican crown. The +old custodian told me that he witnessed the scene and he pointed out to +me where his young master and the other actors in this, the first act of +the tragedy, stood. How little could the youthful Emperor have dreamed, +as he set sail for those distant shores, that the day would come when +the Dual Monarchy would go down in ruins, when the ancient dynasty of +the Hapsburgs would come to an inglorious end, and when the garden paths +where he and his beautiful young bride used to saunter in the moonlight +would be paced by Italian carabineers. + +If you will get out the atlas and turn to the map of Italy you will +notice at the head of the Adriatic a peninsula shaped like the head of +an Indian arrow, its tip aimed toward the unprotected flank of Italy's +eastern coast. This arrow-shaped peninsula is Istria. In the western +notch of the arrowhead, toward Italy, is Trieste--terminus of the +railway to Vienna. In the opposite notch is Fiume--terminus of the +railway which runs across Croatia and Hungary to Budapest. And at the +very tip of the arrow, as though it had been ground to a deadly +sharpness, is Pola, formerly Austria's greatest naval base. Dotting the +western coast of Istria, between Trieste and Pola, are four small +towns--Parenzo, Pirano, Capodistria and Rovigno--all purely and +distinctively Italian, and, on the other side of the peninsula, the +famous resort of Abbazia, popular with wealthy Hungarians and with the +yachtsmen of all nations before the war. + +Parenzo, Pirano, Capodistria and Rovigno were all outposts of the +Venetian Republic, forming an outer line of defense against the Slav +barbarians of the interior. Everything about them speaks of Venice: the +snarling Lion of St. Mark which is carved above their gates and +surmounts the marble columns in their piazzas; their old, old +churches--the one at Parenzo was built in the sixth century, being +copied after the famous basilica at Ravenna, across the Adriatic--the +interiors of many of them adorned, like that of St. Mark's in Venice, +with superb mosaics of gold and semi-precious stones; the carved lions' +heads, _bocca del leone_, for receiving secret missives; the delicate +tracery above the doors and windows of the palazzos, and all those other +architectural features so characteristic of the City of the Doges. There +is no questioning what these Istrian coast-towns were or are. They are +as Italian to-day as when, a thousand years ago, they formed a part of +Venice's far-flung skirmish line. But penetrate even a single mile into +the interior of the peninsula and you find a wholly different race from +these Latins of the littoral, a different architecture (if architecture +can be applied to square huts built of sun-dried bricks) and a different +tongue. These people are the Croats, a hardy, industrious agricultural +people, generally illiterate, at least as I found them in Istria, and +with few of the comforts and none of the culture which characterized the +Latin communities on the coast. In short, the towns of the western coast +are undeniably Italian; the rest of the peninsula is solidly Slav. + +The interior of Istria consists, in the main, of a barren, monotonous +and peculiarly unlovely limestone plateau known as the Karst, a +continuation of that waterless and treeless ridge, called by Italians +the Carso, which stretches from Trieste northwestward to Goritzia and +beyond. With the exception of the Bukovica of Dalmatia and the lava-beds +of southern Utah, the Istrian Karst is the most utterly hopeless region, +from the standpoint of agriculture, that I know. It is dotted with many +small farmsteads, it is true, but one marvels at the courage and +patience which their peasant owners displayed in their unequal struggle +with Nature. The rocky surface is covered with a stunted, +discouraged-looking vegetation which reminded me of that clothing the +flanks of the mountains in the vicinity of the Roosevelt Dam, in +Arizona, and here and there are vast rolling moors, uninhabited by man +or animal, as desolate, mysterious and repelling as that depicted by Sir +Arthur Conan Doyle in _The Hound of the Baskervilles_. The Karst, like +the Carso, is dotted with curious depressions called _dolinas_, some of +them as much as 100 feet in depth, the floors of which, varying in +extent from a few square yards to several acres, are covered with soil +which is as rich as the surface of the surrounding plateau is worthless. +Because of the fertility of these singular depressions, and their +immunity from the cold winds which in winter sweep the surface of the +Karst, they are utilized by the peasants for growing fruits, vegetables +and, in some cases, small patches of grain, being, in effect, sunken +gardens provided by Nature as though to recompense the Istrians, in some +measure, for their discouraging struggle for existence. + +Just behind the very tip of the peninsula, on the edge of a superb +natural harbor, the entrance to which is masked by the Brioni Islands, +is the great naval base of Pola, from the shelter of whose +fortifications and mined approaches the Austrian fleet was able to +terrorize the defenseless towns along Italy's unprotected eastern +seaboard and to menace the commerce of the northern Adriatic. Pola Is a +strange mélange of the ancient and the modern, for from the topmost +tiers of the great Roman Arena--scarcely less imposing than the Coliseum +at Rome--we looked down upon a harbor dotted with the fighting monsters +of the Italian navy, while all day long Italian seaplanes swooped and +circled over the splendid arch, erected by a Roman emperor in the dim +dawn of European history, to commemorate his triumph over the +barbarians. + +It is just such anomalies as these that make almost impossible the +solution, on a basis of strict justice to the inhabitants, of the +Adriatic problem. Here you see a city that, in history, in population, +in language, is as characteristically Italian as though it were under +the shadow of the Apennines, yet encircling that city is a countryside +whose inhabitants are wholly Slav, who are intensely hostile to Italian +institutions, and many of whom have no knowledge whatsoever of the +Italian tongue. The Italians claim that Istria should be theirs because +of the undoubted Latin character of the towns along its coasts, because +their Roman and Venetian ancestors established their outposts here long +centuries ago, because the only culture that the region possesses is +Italian, and, above all else, because its possession is essential to the +safety of Italy herself. The Slavs, on the other hand, lay claim to +Istria on the ground that its first inhabitants, whether barbarians or +not, were Slavs, that the Italians who settled on its shores were but +filibusters and adventurers, and that its inhabitants, by blood, by +language, and by sentiment, are overwhelmingly Slav to-day. The only +thing on which both races agree is that the peninsula should not be +divided. It was no easy problem, you see, which the peace-makers were +expected to solve with strict justice for all. If my memory serves me +right, King Solomon was once called upon by two mothers to settle a +somewhat similar dispute, though in that case it was a child instead of +a country whose ownership was in question. So, though both Latins and +Slavs may continue to assert their rights to the peninsula in its +entirety, I imagine that the Istrian problem will eventually be settled +by the judgment of Solomon. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE BORDERLAND OF SLAV AND LATIN + + +It was the same along the entire line of the Armistice from the Brenner +down to Istria. Whenever the officials with whom we talked heard that we +were going to Fiume, they shook their heads pessimistically. "It's a +good place to stay away from just now," said one. "They won't let you +enter the city," another warned us. Or, "You mustn't think of taking the +_signora_ with you." But the representative of an American oil company +whom I met in the American consulate in Trieste regarded the excursion +from a different view-point altogether. + +"Be sure to stop at the Europa," he urged me. "It's right on the +water-front, and there isn't a better place in the city to see what's +happening. I was there last week when the mob attacked the French +Annamite troops. Believe me, friend, that was one hellish business ... +they literally cut those poor little Chinks into pieces. I saw the whole +thing from my window. I'm going back to Fiume to-morrow, and if you like +I'll tell the manager of the Europa to save you a front room." + +His tone was that of a New Yorker telling a friend from up-State that he +would reserve him a room in a Fifth Avenue hotel from which to view a +parade. + +As things turned out, however, we did not have occasion to avail +ourselves of this offer, for we found that rooms had been reserved for +us at a hotel in Abbazia, just across the bay from Fiume. This +arrangement was due to the Italian military governor, General Grazioli, +who was perfectly aware that the inhabitants of Fiume were not hanging +out any "Welcome-to-Our-City" signs for foreigners, particularly for +foreigners who were country people of President Wilson, and that the +fewer Americans there were in the town the less danger there was of +anti-American demonstrations. In view of what had happened to the +Annamites I had no overpowering desire to be the center of a similar +demonstration. Pursuant to this arrangement we slept in a great barn of +a hotel whose echoing corridors had, in happier days, been a favorite +resort of the wealth and fashion of Hungary, but whose once costly +furniture had been sadly dilapidated by the spurred boots of the +Austrian staff officers who had used it as a headquarters; in the +mornings we had our sugarless coffee and butterless war-bread on a lofty +balcony commanding a superb panorama of the Istrian coast from Icici to +Volosca and of the island-studded Bay of Quarnero, and commuted to and +from Fiume in the big gray Lancia in which we had traveled along the +line of the Armistice for upward of 2,000 miles. + +We had our first view of the Unredeemed City (though it was really not +my first view, as I had been there before the war) from a curve in the +road where it suddenly emerges from the woods of evergreen laurel above +Volosca to drop in steep white zigzags to the sea. It is superbly +situated, this ancient city over whose possession Slav and Latin are +growling at each other like dogs over a disputed bone. With its snowy +buildings spread on the slopes of a shallow amphitheater between the +sapphire waters of the Adriatic and the barren flanks of the Istrian +Karst, it suggested a lovely siren, all glistening and white, who had +emerged from the sea to lie upon the bare brown breast of a mountain +giant. + +The car, with its exhaust wide open, for your Italian driver delights in +noise, roared down the grade at express-train speed, took the hairpin +curve at the bottom on two wheels, to be brought to an abrupt halt with +an agonized squealing of brakes, our further progress being barred by a +six-inch tree-trunk which had been lowered across the road like a +barrier at an old-time country toll-gate. At one side of the road was a +picket of Italian carabinieri in field-gray uniforms, their huge cocked +hats rendered a shade less anachronistic by covers of gray linen, with +carbines slung over their shoulders, hunter fashion. On the opposite +side of the highway was a patrol of British sailors in white drill +landing-kit, their rosy, smiling faces in striking contrast to the +saturnine countenances of the Italians. (I might explain, +parenthetically, that Fiume, being in theory under the jurisdiction of +the Peace Conference, was at this time occupied by about a thousand +French troops, the same number of British, a few score American +blue-jackets, and nearly 10,000 Italians.) The sergeant in command of +the carabinieri stepped up to the car, saluted, and curtly asked for our +papers. I produced them. Among them was a pass authorizing us to go when +and where we pleased in the territory occupied by the Italian forces. It +had been given to me by the Minister of War himself, but it made about +as much impression on the sergeant as though it had been signed by +Charlie Chaplin. + +"This is good only for Italy," he said. "It will not take you across the +line of the Armistice." + +[Illustration: AT THE GATES OF FIUME + +Major Powell (second from left), Mrs. Powell, Captain Tron of the +Italian _Comando Supremo_, and the car in which they travelled 1,000 +miles] + +Thereupon I played my last trump. I produced an imposing document which +had been given me by the Italian peace delegation in Paris. It had +originally been issued by the Orlando-Sonnino cabinet, but upon the fall +of that government I had had it countersigned, before leaving Rome, by +the Nitti cabinet. It was addressed to all the military, naval, and +civil authorities of Italy, and was so flatteringly worded that it would +have satisfied St. Peter himself. But the sergeant was not in the +least impressed. He read it through deliberately, scrutinized the +official seals, examined the watermark, and then disappeared into a +sentry-box on the roadside. I could hear him talking, evidently over a +telephone. Presently he emerged and signaled to his men to raise the +barrier. "Passo," he said grudgingly, in a tone which intimated that he +was letting us enter the jealously guarded portals of Fiume against his +better judgment, the bar swung upward, the big car leaped forward like a +race-horse that feels the spur, and in another moment we were rolling +through the tree-arched, stone-paved streets of the most-talked-of city +in the world. As we sped down the Corsia Deák we passed a large hotel +which, as was quite evident, had recently been renamed, for the words +"Albergo d'Annunzio" were fresh and staring. But underneath was the +former name, which had been so imperfectly obliterated that it could +still easily be deciphered. It was "Hotel Wilson." + +To correctly visualize Fiume you must imagine a town no larger than +Atlantic City crowded upon a narrow shelf between a towering mountain +wall and the sea; a town with broad and moderately clean streets, +shaded, save in the center of the city, by double rows of stately trees +and paved with large square flagstones which make abominably rough +riding; a town with several fine thoroughfares bordered by +well-constructed four-story buildings of brick and stone; with numerous +surprisingly well-stocked shops; with miles and miles of concrete moles +and wharfs, equipped with harbor machinery of the most modern +description, and adjacent to them rows of warehouses as commodious as +the Bush Terminals in Brooklyn, and rising here and there above the +trees and the housetops, like fingers pointing to heaven, the graceful +campaniles of fine old churches, one of which, the cathedral, was +already old when the Great Navigator turned the prows of his caravels +westward from Cadiz in quest of this land we live in. + +Fiume lacks none of the conditions which make a great seaport: there is +deep water and a convenient approach, which is protected against the +ocean and against a hostile fleet by the islands of Veglia and Cherso +and against the north winds by the rocky plateau of the Karst. Yet, +despite its natural advantages and the millions which were spent in its +development by the Hungarian Government, Fiume never developed into a +port of the size and importance which the foreign commerce of Hungary +would have seemed to require, this being largely due to its unfortunate +geographical condition, for the dreary and inhospitable Karst completely +shuts the city off from the interior, the numerous tunnels and steep +gradients making rail transport by this route difficult and consequently +expensive. + +The public life of the city centers in the Piazza Adamich, a broad +square on which front numerous hotels, restaurants, and coffee-houses, +before which lounge, from midmorning until midnight, a considerable +proportion of the Italian population, sipping _café nero_, or tall +drinks concocted from sweet, bright-colored syrups, scanning the papers +and discussing, with much noise and gesticulation, the political +situation and the doings of the peace commissioners in Paris. Save only +Barcelona, Fiume has the most excitable and irritable population of any +city that I know. When we were there street disturbances were as +frequent as dog-fights used to be in Constantinople before the Turks +recognized that the best gloves are made from dogskins. As I have said, +a few days before our arrival a mob had attacked and killed in most +barbarous fashion a number of Annamite soldiers who were guarding a +French warehouse on the quay. Several prominent Fumani with whom I +talked attempted to justify the massacre on the ground that a French +sailor had torn a ribbon bearing the motto "_Italia o Morte_!" from the +breast of a woman of the town. They did not seem to regret the affair or +to realize that it is just such occurrences which lead the Peace +Conference to question the wisdom of subjecting the city's Slav minority +to that sort of rule. As a result of the tense atmosphere which +prevailed in the city, the nerves of the population were so on edge that +when my car back-fired with a series of violent explosions, the loungers +in front of a near-by café jumped as though a bomb had been thrown among +them. The patron saint of Fiume is, appropriately enough, St. Vitus. + +In discussing the question of Fiume the mistake is almost invariably +made of considering it as a single city, whereas it really consists of +two distinct communities, Fiume and Sussak, bitterly antagonistic and +differing in race, religion, language, politics, customs, and thought. +A small river, the Rieka, no wider than the Erie Canal, divides the city +into two parts, one Latin the other Slav, very much as the Rio Grande +separates the American city of El Paso from the Mexican town of Ciudad +Juarez. On the left or west bank of the river is Fiume, with +approximately 40,000 inhabitants, of whom very nearly three-fourths are +Italian. Here are the wharfs, the harbor works, the rail-head, the +municipal buildings, the hotels, and the business districts. But cross +the Rieka by the single wooden bridge which connects Fiume with Sussak +and you find yourself in a wholly different atmosphere. In a hundred +paces you pass from a city which is three-quarters Italian to a town +which is overwhelmingly Slav. There are about 4,500 people in Sussak, of +whom only one-eighth are Italian. But let it be perfectly clear that +Sussak is not Fiume. In proclaiming its annexation to Italy on the +ground of self-determination, the National Council of Fiume did not +include Sussak, which is a Croatian village in historically Croatian +territory. It will be seen, therefore, that Sussak, which is not a part +of Fiume but an entirely separate municipality, does not enter into the +question at all. As for the territory immediately adjacent to Fiume on +the north and east, it is as Slav as though it were in the heart of +Serbia. To put it briefly, Fiume is an Italian island entirely +surrounded by Slavs. + +The violent self-assertiveness of the Fumani may be attributed to the +large measure of autonomy which they have always enjoyed, Fiume's status +as a free city having been definitely established by Ferdinand I in +1530, recognized by Maria Theresa in 1776 when she proclaimed it "a +separate body annexed to the crown of Hungary," and by the Hungarian +Government finally confirmed in 1868. Louis Kossuth admitted its +extraterritorial character when he said that, even though the Magyar +tongue should be enforced elsewhere as the medium of official +communication, he considered that an exception "should be made in favor +of a maritime city whose vocation was to welcome all nations led thither +by commerce." + +Though the Italian element of the population vociferously asserts its +adherence to the slogan "_Italia o Morte_!" I am convinced that many of +the more substantial and far-seeing citizens, if they dared freely to +express their opinions, would be found to favor the restoration of the +city's ancient autonomy under the ægis of the League of Nations. The +Italians of Flume are at bottom, beneath their excitable and mercurial +temperaments, a shrewd business people who have the commercial future of +their city at heart. And they are intelligent enough to realize that, +unless there be established some stable form of government which will +propitiate the Slav minority as well as the Italian majority, the Slav +nations of the hinterland will almost certainly divert their trade, on +which Fiume's commercial importance entirely depends, to some +non-Italian port, in which event the city would inevitably retrograde to +the obscure fishing village which it was less than half a century ago. + +In order that you may have before you a clear and comprehensive picture +of this most perplexing and dangerous situation, which is so fraught +with peril for the future peace of the world, suppose that I sketch for +you, in the fewest word-strokes possible, the arguments of the rival +claimants for fair Fiume's hand. Italy's claims may be classified under +three heads: sentimental, commercial, and political. Her sentimental +claims are based on the ground that the city's population, character, +and history are overwhelmingly Italian. I have already stated that the +Italians constitute about three-fourths of the total population of +Fiume, the latest figures, as quoted in the United States Senate, giving +29,569 inhabitants to the Italians and 14,798 to the Slavs. There is no +denying that the city has a distinctively Italian atmosphere, for its +architecture is Italian, that Venetian trademark, the Lion of St. Mark, +being in evidence on several of the older buildings; the mode of outdoor +life is such as one meets in Italy; most of its stores and banks are +owned by Italians, and Italian is the prevailing tongue. The claim that +the city's history is Italian is, however, hardly borne out by history +itself, for in the sixteen centuries which have elapsed since the fall +of the Roman Empire, Fiume has been under Italian rule--that of the +republic of Venice--for just four days. + +The commercial reason underlying Italy's insistence on obtaining control +of Fiume is due to the fact that Italians are convinced that should +Fiume pass into either neutral or Jugoslav hands, it would mean the +commercial ruin of Trieste, where enormous sums of Italian money have +been invested. They assert, and with sound reasoning, that the Slavs of +the hinterland, and probably the Germans and Magyars as well, would ship +through Fiume, were it under Slav or international control, instead of +through Trieste, which is Italian. One does not need to be an economist +to realize that if Fiume could secure the trade of Jugoslavia and the +other states carved from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the commercial +supremacy of Trieste, which depends upon this same hinterland, would +quickly disappear. On the other hand, those Italians whose vision has +not been distorted by their passions clearly foresee that, should the +final disposition of Fiume prove unacceptable to the Jugoslavs, they +will almost certainly divert the trade of the interior to some Slav +port, leaving Fiume to drowse in idleness beside her moss-grown wharfs +and crumbling warehouses, dreaming dreams of her one-time prosperity. + +Italy's third reason for insisting on the cession of Fiume is political, +and, because it is based on a deep-seated and haunting fear, it is, +perhaps, the most compelling reason of all. Italy does not trust the +Jugoslavs. She cannot forget that the Austrian and Hungarian fractions +of the new Jugoslav people--in other words, the Slovenes and +Croats--were the most faithful subjects of the Dual Monarchy, fighting +for the Hapsburgs with a ferocity and determination hardly surpassed in +the war. Unlike the Poles and Czecho-Slovaks, who threw in their lot +with the Allies, the Slovenes and Croats fought, and fought desperately, +for the triumph of the Central Empires. Had these two peoples turned +against their masters early in the war, the great struggle would have +ended months, perhaps years, earlier than it did. Yet, within a few days +after the signing of the Armistice, they became Jugoslavs, and announced +that they have always been at heart friendly to the Allies. But, so the +Italians argue, their conversion has been too sudden: they have changed +their flag but not their hearts; their real allegiance is not to +Belgrade but to Berlin. The Italian attitude toward these peoples who +have so abruptly switched from enemies to allies is that of the American +soldier for the Filipino: + + "He may be a brother of William H. Taft, + But he ain't no brother of mine." + +The Italians are convinced that the three peoples who have been so +hastily welded into Jugoslavia will, as the result of internal +jealousies and dissensions, eventually disintegrate, and that, when the +break-up comes, those portions of the new state which formerly belonged +to Austria-Hungary will ally themselves with the great Teutonic or, +perhaps, Russo-Teutonic, confederation which, most students of European +affairs believe, will arise from the ruins of the Central Empires. When +that day comes the new power will look with hungering eyes toward the +rich markets which fringe the Middle Sea, and what more convenient +gateway through which to pour its merchandise--and, perhaps, its +fighting men--than Fiume in friendly hands? In order to bar forever +this, the sole gateway to the warm water still open to the Hun, the +Italians should, they maintain, be made its guardians. + +"But," you argue, "suppose Jugoslavia does _not_ break up? How can +14,000,000 Slavs seriously menace Italy's 40,000,000?" + +Ah! Now you touch the very heart of the whole matter; now you have put +your finger on the secret fear which has animated Italy throughout the +controversy over Fiume and Dalmatia. For I do not believe that it is a +reincarnated Germany which Italy dreads. It is something far more +ominous, more terrifying than that, which alarms her. For, looking +across the Adriatic, she sees the monstrous vision of a united and +aggressive Slavdom, untold millions strong, of which the Jugoslavs are +but the skirmish-line, ready to dispute not merely Italy's schemes for +the commercial mastery of the Balkans but her overlordship of that sea +which she regards as an Italian lake. + +Jugoslavia's claims to Fiume are more briefly stated. Firstly, she lays +title to it on the ground that geographically Fiume belongs to Croatia, +and that Croatia is now a part of Jugoslavia, or, to give the new +country its correct name, the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and +Slovenes. This claim is, I think, well founded, and this despite the +fact that Italy has attempted to prove, by means of innumerable +pamphlets and maps, that Fiume, being within the great semi-circular +wall formed by the Alps, is physically Italian. The Jugoslavs demand +Fiume, secondly, because, they assert, if Fiume and Sussak are +considered as a single city, that city has more Slavs than Italians, +while the population of the hinterland is almost solidly Croatian. With +the first half of this claim I cannot agree. As I have already pointed +out, Sussak is not, and never has been, a part of Fiume, and its +annexation is not demanded by the Italians. Conceding, however, for the +sake of argument, that Fiume and Sussak are parts of the same city, the +most reliable figures which I have been able to obtain show that, even +were the Slav majority in Sussak added to the Slav minority in Fiume, +the Slavs would still be able to muster barely more than a third of the +total population. By far the strongest title which the Slavs have to the +city, and the one which commands for them the greatest sympathy, is +their assertion that Fiume is the natural and, indeed, almost the only +practicable commercial outlet for Jugoslavia, and that the struggling +young state needs it desperately. In reply to this, the Italians point +out that there are numerous harbors along the Dalmatian coast which +would answer the needs of Jugoslavia as well, or almost as well, as +Fiume. Now, I am speaking from first-hand knowledge when I assert that +this is not so, for I have seen with my own eyes every harbor, or +potential harbor, on the eastern coast of the Adriatic from Istria to +Greece. As a matter of fact, the entire coast of Dalmatia would not make +up to the Jugoslavs for the loss of Fiume. The map gives no idea of the +city's importance as the southernmost point at which a standard-gauge +railway reaches the Adriatic, for the railway leading to Ragusa, to +which the Italians so repeatedly refer as providing an outlet for +Jugoslavia, is not only narrow-gauge but is in part a rack-and-pinion +mountain line. The situation is best summed up by the commander of the +American war-ship on which I dined at Spalato. + +"It is not a question of finding a good harbor for the Jugoslavs," he +said. "This coast is rich in splendid harbors. It is a question, rather, +of finding a practicable route for a standard-gauge railway over or +through the mile-high range of the Dinaric Alps, which parallel the +entire coast, shutting the coast towns off from the hinterland. Until +such a railway is built, the peoples of the interior have no means of +getting their products down to the coast save through Fiume. Italy +already has the great port of Trieste. Were she also to be awarded Fiume +she would have a strangle-hold on the trade of Jugoslavia which would +probably mean that country's commercial ruin." + +I have now given you, as fairly as I know how, the principal arguments +of the rival claimants. The Italians of Fiume, as I have already shown, +outnumber the Slavs almost three to one, and it is they who are +demanding so violently that the city should be annexed to Italy on the +ground of self-determination. But I do not believe that, because there +is an undoubted Italian majority in Fiume, the city should be awarded to +Italy. If Italy were asking only what was beyond all shadow of question +Italian, I should sympathize with her unreservedly. But to place 10,000 +Slavs under Italian rule would be as unjust and as provocative of future +trouble as to place 30,000 Italians under the rule of Belgrade. Nor is +the cession of the city itself the end of Italy's claims, for, in order +to place it beyond the range of the enemy's guns (by the "enemy" she +means her late allies, the Serbs), in order to maintain control of the +railways entering the city, and in order to bring the city actually +within her territorial borders, she desires to extend her rule over +other thousands of people who are not Italian, who do not speak the +Italian tongue, and who do not wish Italian rule. Italy has no stancher +friend than I, but neither my profound admiration for what she achieved +during the war nor my deep sympathy for the staggering losses she +suffered can blind me to the unwisdom, let us call it, of certain of her +demands. I am convinced that, when the passions aroused by the +controversy have had time to cool, the Italians will themselves question +the wisdom of accumulating for themselves future troubles by creating +new lost provinces and a new Irredenta by annexing against their will +thousands of people of an alien race. Viewing the question from the +standpoints of abstract justice, of sound politics, and of common sense, +I do not believe that Fiume should be given either to the Italians or to +the Jugoslavs, but that the interests of both, as well as the prosperity +of the Fumani themselves, should be safeguarded by making it a free +city under international control. + +No account of the extraordinary drama--farce would be a better name were +its possibilities not so tragic--which is being staged at Fiume would be +complete without some mention of the romantic figure who is playing the +part of hero or villain, according to whether your sympathies are with +the Italians or the Jugoslavs. There is nothing romantic, mind you, in +Gabriele d'Annunzio's personal appearance. On the contrary, he is one of +the most unimpressive-looking men I have ever seen. He is short of +stature--not over five feet five, I should guess--and even his +beautifully cut clothes, which fit so faultlessly about the waist and +hips as to suggest the use of stays, but partially camouflage the +corpulency of middle age. His head looks like a new-laid egg which has +been highly varnished; his pointed beard is clipped in a fashion which +reminded me of the bronze satyrs in the Naples museum; a monocle, worn +without a cord, conceals his dead eye, which he lost in battle. His walk +is a combination of a mince and a swagger; his movements are those of +an actor who knows that the spotlight is upon him. + +Though d'Annunzio takes high rank among the modern poets, many of his +admirers holding him to be the greatest one alive, he is a far greater +orator. His diction is perfect, his wealth of imagery exhaustless; I +have seen him sway a vast audience as a wheat-field is swayed by the +wind. His life he values not at all; the four rows of ribbons which on +the breast of his uniform make a splotch of color were not won by his +verses. Though well past the half-century mark, he has participated in a +score of aerial combats, occupying the observer's seat in his fighting +Sva and operating the machine-gun. But perhaps the most brilliant of his +military exploits was a bloodless one, when he flew over Vienna and +bombed that city with proclamations, written by himself, pointing out to +the Viennese the futility of further resistance. His popularity among +all classes is amazing; his word is law to the great organization known +as the _Combatenti_, composed of the 5,000,000 men who fought in the +Italian armies. He is a jingo of the jingoes, his plans for Italian +expansion reaching far beyond the annexation of Fiume or even all of +Dalmatia, for he has said again and again that he dreams of that day +when Italy will have extended her rule over all that territory which +once was held by Rome. + +[Illustration: THE INHABITANTS OF FIUME CHEERING D'ANNUNZIO AND HIS +RAIDERS + +"Save only Barcelona, Fiume has the most excitable population of any +place that I know." + +The patron saint of the city is, appropriately enough, St. Vitus] + +He is a very picturesque and interesting figure, is Gabriele +d'Annunzio--very much in earnest, wholly sincere, but fanatical, +egotistical, intolerant of the rights or opinions of others, a +visionary, and perhaps a little mad. I imagine that he would rather have +his name linked with that of that other soldier-poet, who "flamed away +at Missolonghi" nearly a century ago, than with any other character in +history save Garibaldi. D'Annunzio, like Byron, was an exile from his +native land. Both had a habit of never paying their bills; both had +offended against the social codes of their times; both flamed against +what they believed to be injustice and tyranny; both had a passionate +love for liberty; both possessed a highly developed sense of the +dramatic and delighted in playing romantic rôles. I have heard it said +that d'Annunzio's raid on Fiume would make his name immortal, but I +doubt it. Barely a score of years have passed since the raid on +Johannesburg, which was a far more daring and hazardous exploit than +d'Annunzio's Fiume performance, yet to-day how many people remember +Doctor Jameson? It can be said for this middle-aged poet that he has +successfully defied the government of Italy, that he flouted the royal +duke who was sent to parley with him, that he seduced the Italian army +and navy into committing open mutiny--"a breach of that military +discipline," in the words of the Prime Minister, "which is the +foundation of the safety of the state"--and that he has done more to +shake foreign confidence in the stability of the Italian character and +the dependability of the Italian soldier than the Austro-Germans did +when they brought about the disaster at Caporetto. + +I have heard it said that the Nitti government had advance knowledge of +the raid on Fiume and that the reason it took no vigorous measures +against the filibusters was because it secretly approved of their +action. This I do not believe. With President Wilson, the Jugoslavs, +d'Annunzio, and the Italian army and navy arrayed against him, I am +convinced that Mr. Nitti did everything that could be done without +precipitating either a war or a revolution. Much credit is also due to +the Jugoslavs for their forbearance and restraint under great +provocation. They must have been sorely tempted to give the Poet the +spanking he so richly deserves. + + * * * * * + +When the small army of newspaper correspondents who were despatched by +the great New York and London dailies to Khartoum to interview Colonel +Roosevelt upon his emergence from the jungle started up the White Nile +to meet the explorer, they were deterred, both by the shortage of boats +and the question of expense, from chartering individual steamers. But +the public at home was not permitted to know of these petty limitations +and annoyances. On the contrary, people all over the United States, at +their breakfast-tables, read the despatches from the far-off Sudan dated +from "On board the New York _Herald's_ dahabeah _Rameses_" or "The New +York _American's_ despatch-boat _Abbas Hilmi_," or "The Chicago +_Tribune's_ special steamer _General Gordon_," and never dreamed that +the young men in sun-helmets and white linen who were writing those +despatches were comfortably seated under the awnings of the same +decrepit stern-wheeler, which they had chartered jointly, but on which, +in order to lend importance and dignity to his despatches, each +correspondent had bestowed a particular name. + +But the destroyer _Sirio_, which we found awaiting us at Fiume, we did +not have to share with any one. Thanks to the courtesy of the Italian +Ministry of Marine, she was all ours, while we were aboard her, from her +knife-like prow to the screws kicking the water under her stern. + +"I am under orders to place myself entirely at your disposal," explained +her youthful and very stiffly starched skipper, Commander Poggi. "I am +to go where you desire and to stop as long as you please. Those are my +instructions." + +Thus it came about that, shortly after noon on a scorching summer day, +we cast off our moorings and, leaving quarrel-torn Fiume abaft, turned +the nose of the _Sirio_ sou' by sou'-west, down the coast of Dalmatia. +The sun-kissed waters of the Bay of Quarnero looked for all the world +like a vast azure carpet strewn with a million sparkling diamonds; on +our starboard quarter stretched the green-clad slopes of Istria, with +the white villas of Abbazia peeping coyly out from amid the groves of +pine and laurel; to the eastward the bleak brown peaks of the Dinaric +Alps rose, savage, mysterious, forbidding, against the cloudless summer +sky. Perhaps no stretch of coast in all the world has had so varied and +romantic a history or so many masters as this Dalmatian seaboard. Since +the days of the tattooed barbarians who called themselves Illyrian, this +coast has been ruled in turn by PhÅ“nicians, Celts, Macedonians, Greeks, +Romans, Goths, Byzantines, Croats, Serbs, Bulgars, Huns, Avars, +Saracens, Normans, Magyars, Genoese, Venetians, Tartars, Bosnians, +Turks, French, Russians, Montenegrins, British, Austrians, Italians--and +now by Americans, for from Cape Planca southward to Ragusa, a distance +of something over a hundred miles, the United States is the governing +power and an American admiral holds undisputed sway. + +Leaning over the rail as we fled southward I lost myself in dreams of +far-off days. In my mind I could see, sweeping past in imaginary review, +those other vessels which, all down the ages, had skirted these same +shores: the purple sails of PhÅ“nicia, Greek galleys bearing colonists +from Cnidus, Roman triremes with the slaves sweating at the oars, +high-powered, low-waisted Norman caravels with the arms of their +marauding masters painted on their bellowing canvas, stately Venetian +carracks with carved and gilded sterns, swift-sailing Uskok pirate +craft, their decks crowded with swarthy men in skirts and turbans, +Genoese galleons, laden with the products of the hot lands, French and +English frigates with brass cannon peering from their rows of ports, the +grim, gray monsters of the Hapsburg navy. And then I suddenly awoke, +for, coming up from the southward at full speed, their slanting funnels +vomiting great clouds of smoke, were four long, low, lean, incredibly +swift craft, ostrich-plumes of snowy foam curling from their bows, which +sped past us like wolfhounds running with their noses to the ground. As +they passed I could see quite plainly, flaunting from each taffrail, a +flag of stripes and stars. + +The sun was sinking behind Italy when, threading our way amid the maze +of islands and islets which border the Dalmatian shore, we saw beyond +our bows, silhouetted against the rose-coral of the evening sky, the +slender campaniles and the crenellated ramparts of Zara. It was so still +and calm and beautiful that I felt as though I were looking at a scene +upon a stage and that the curtain would descend at any moment and +destroy the illusion. The little group of white-clad naval officers who +greeted us upon the quay informed us that the governor-general, Admiral +Count Millo, had placed at our disposal the yacht _Zara_, formerly the +property of the Austrian Emperor, on which we were to live during our +stay in the Dalmatian capital. It was a peculiarly thoughtful thing to +do, for the summers are hot in Zara, the city's few hotels leave much to +be desired, and a stay at a palace, even that of a provincial governor, +is hedged about by a certain amount of formality and restrictions. But +the _Zara_, while we were aboard her, was as much ours as the +_Mayflower_ is Mr. Wilson's. We occupied the spacious after-cabins, +exquisitely paneled in white mahogany, which had been used by the +Austrian archduchesses and whose furnishings still bore the imperial +crown, and our breakfasts were served under the white awnings stretched +over the after-deck, where, lounging in the grateful shade, we could +look out across the harbor, dotted with the gaudy sails of fishing craft +and bordered by the walls and gardens of the quaint old city, to the +islands of Arbe and Pago, rising, like huge, uncut emeralds, from the +lazy southern sea. At noon we usually lunched with a score or more of +staff-officers in the large, cool dining-room of the officers' mess, and +at night we dined with the governor-general and his family at the +palace, formerly the residence of the Austrian viceroys. Dinner over, we +lounged in cane chairs on the terrace, served by white-clad, +silent-footed servants with coffee, cigarettes, and the maraschino for +which this coast is famous. Those were never-to-be-forgotten evenings, +for the gently heaving breast of the Adriatic glowed with a +phosphorescent luminousness, the air was heavy with the fragrance of +orange, almond, and oleander, the sky was like purple velvet, and the +stars seemed very near. + +Though the population of Dalmatia is overwhelmingly Slav, quite +two-thirds of the 14,000 inhabitants of Zara, its capital, are Italian. +Yet, were it not for the occasional Morlachs in their picturesque +costumes seen in the markets or on the wharfs, one would not suspect the +presence of any Slav element in the town, for the dim and tortuous +streets and the spacious squares bear Italian names--Via del Duomo, Riva +Vecchia, Piazza della Colonna; crouching above the city gates is the +snarling Lion of St. Mark, and everywhere one hears the liquid accents +of the Latin. Zara, like Fiume, is an Italian colony set down on a +Slavonian shore, and, like its sister-city to the north, it bears the +indelible and unmistakable imprint of Italian civilization. + +The long, narrow strip of territory sandwiched between the Adriatic and +the Dinaric Alps which comprised the Austrian province of Dalmatia, +though upward of 200 miles in length, has an area scarcely greater than +that of Connecticut and a population smaller than that of Cleveland. +Scarcely more than a tenth of its whole surface is under the plow, the +rest, where it is not altogether sterile, consisting of mountain +pasture. With the exception of scattered groves on the landward slopes, +the country is virtually treeless, the forests for which Dalmatia was +once famous having been cut down by the Venetian ship-builders or +wantonly burned by the Uskok pirates, while every attempt at replanting +has been frustrated by the shallowness of the soil, the frequent +droughts, and the multitudes of goats which browse on the young trees. +The dreary expanse of the Bukovica, lying between Zara and the Bosnian +frontier, is, without exception, the most inhospitable region that I +have ever seen. For mile after mile, far as the eye can see, the earth +is overlaid by a thick stratum of jagged limestone, so rough that no +horse could traverse it, so sharp and flinty that a quarter of an hour's +walking across it would cut to pieces the stoutest pair of boots. Under +the rays of the summer sun these rocks become as hot as the top of a +stove; so hot, indeed, that eggs can be cooked upon them, while metal +objects exposed for only a few minutes to the sun will burn the hand. +Scattered here and there over this terrible plateau are tiny farmsteads, +their houses and the walls shutting in the little patches under +cultivation being built from the stones obtained in clearing the soil, a +task requiring incredible patience. No wonder that the folk who dwell +in them are characterized by expressions as stony and hopeless as the +soil from which they wring a wretched existence. + +No seaboard of the Mediterranean, save only the coast of Greece, is so +deeply indented as the Dalmatian littoral, with Its unending succession +of rock-bound bays, as frequent as the perforations on a postage-stamp, +and its thick fringe of islands. In calm weather the channels between +these islands and the mainland resemble a chain of landlocked lakes, +like those in the Adirondacks or in southern Ontario, being connected by +narrow straits called _canales_, brilliantly clear to a depth of several +fathoms. As a rule, the surrounding hills are rugged, bleached yellow or +pale russet, and destitute of verdure, but their monotony is relieved by +the half-ruined castles and monasteries which, perched on the rocky +heights, perpetually reminded me of Howard Pyle's paintings, and by the +medieval charm of Zara, Sebenico, Spalato, Ragusa, Arbe, and Curzola, +whose architecture, though predominantly Venetian, bears characteristic +traces of the many races which have ruled them. + +Just as Italy insisted on pushing her new borders up to the Brenner so +that she might have a strategic frontier on the north, so she lays claim +to the larger of the Dalmatian islands--Lissa, Lésina, Curzola, and +certain others--in order to protect her Adriatic shores. A glance at the +map will make her reasons amply plain. There stretches Italy's eastern +coastline, 600 miles of it, from Venice to Otranto, with half a dozen +busy cities and a score of fishing towns, as bare and unprotected as a +bald man's hatless head. Not only is there not a single naval base on +Italy's Adriatic coast south of Venice, but there is no harbor or inlet +that can be transformed into one. Yet across the Adriatic, barely four +hours steam by destroyer away, is a wilderness of islands and deep +harbors where an enemy's fleet could lie safely hidden, from which it +could emerge to attack Italian commerce or to bombard Italy's +unprotected coast towns, and where it could take refuge when the pursuit +became too hot. All down the ages the dwellers along Italy's eastern +seaboard have been terrorized by naval raids from across the Adriatic. +And Italy has determined that they shall be terrorized no more. How +history repeats itself! Just as Rome, twenty-two centuries ago, could +not permit the neighboring islands of Sicily to fall into the hands of +Carthage, so Italy cannot permit these coastwise islands, which form her +only protection against attacks from the east, to pass under the control +of the Jugoslavs. + +"But," I said to the Italians with whom I discussed the matter, "why do +you need any such protection now that the world is to have a League of +Nations? Isn't that a sufficient guarantee that the Jugoslavs will never +attack you?" + +"The League of Nations is in theory a splendid thing," was their answer. +"We subscribe to it in principle most heartily. But because there is a +policeman on duty in your street, do you leave wide open your front +door?" + +To be quite candid, I do not think that it is against Jugoslavia, or, +perhaps it would be more accurate to say, against an unaided Jugoslavia, +that Italy is taking precautions. I have already said, I believe, that +thinking Italians look with grave forebodings to the day when a great +Slav confederation shall rise across the Adriatic, but that day, as they +know full well, is still far distant. Italy's desperate insistence on +retaining possession of the more important Dalmatian islands is dictated +by a far more immediate danger than that. She is convinced that her next +war will be fought, not with the weak young state of Jugoslavia, but +with Jugoslavia _allied with France_. Every Italian with whom I +discussed the question--and I might add, without boasting, many highly +placed and well-informed Italians have honored me with their +confidence--firmly believes that France is jealous of Italy's rapidly +increasing power in the Mediterranean, and that she is secretly +intriguing with the Jugoslavs and the Greeks to prevent Italy obtaining +commercial supremacy in the Balkans. I do not say that this is my +opinion, mind you, but I do say that it is the opinion held by most +Italians. I found that the resentment against the French for what the +Italians term France's "betrayal" of Italy at the Peace Conference was +almost universal; everywhere in Italy I found a deep-seated distrust of +France's commercial ambitions and political designs. Though the Italians +admit that the Jugoslavs will not be able to build a navy for many years +to come, they fear, or profess to fear, that the day is not +immeasurably far distant when a French battle fleet, co-operating with +the armies of Jugoslavia, will threaten Italy's Adriatic seaboard. And +they are determined that, should such a day ever come, French ships +shall not be afforded the protection, as were the Austrian, of the +Dalmatian islands. Italy, with her great modern battle fleet and her +5,000,000 fighting men, regards the threats of Jugoslavia with something +akin to contempt, but France, turned imperialistic and arrogant by her +victory over the Hun, Italy distrusts and fears, believing that, while +protesting her friendship, she is secretly fomenting opposition to +legitimate Italian aspirations in the Balkan peninsula and in the Middle +Sea. (Again let me remind you that I am giving you not my own, but +Italy's point of view.) You will sneer at this, perhaps, as a phantasm +of the imagination, but I assure you, with all the earnestness and +emphasis at my command, that this distrust of one great Latin nation for +another, whether it is justified or not, forms a deadly menace to the +future peace of the world. + +Because I did not wish to confine my observations to the coast towns, +which are, after all, essentially Italian, I motored across Dalmatia at +its widest part, from Zara, through Benkovac, Kistonje, and Knin, to the +little hamlet of Kievo, on the Jugoslav frontier. Though the Slav +population of the Dalmatian hinterland is, according to the assertions +of Belgrade, bitterly hostile to Italian rule, I did not detect a single +symptom of animosity toward the Italian officers who were my companions +on the part of the peasants whom we passed. They displayed, on the +contrary, the utmost courtesy and good feeling, the women, looking like +huge and gaudily dressed dolls in their snowy blouses and embroidered +aprons, courtesying, while the tall, fine-looking men gravely touched +the little round caps which are the national head-gear of Dalmatia. + +Kievo is the last town in Dalmatia, being only a few score yards from +the Bosnian frontier. Its little garrison was in command of a young +Italian captain, a tall, slender fellow with the blond beard of a Viking +and the dreamy eyes of a poet. He had been stationed at this lonely +outpost for seven months, he told me, and he welcomed us as a man +wrecked on a desert island would welcome a rescue party. In order to +escape from the heat and filth and insects of the village, he had built +in a near-by grove a sort of arbor, with a roof of interlaced branches +to keep off the sun. Its furnishings consisted of a home-made table, an +army cot, two or three decrepit chairs, and a phonograph. I did not need +to inquire where he had obtained the phonograph, for on its cover was +stenciled the familiar red triangle of the Y.M.C.A.--the "_Yimka_," as +the Italians call it--which operates more than 300 _casas_ for the use +of the Italian army. While our host was preparing a dubious-looking +drink from sweet, bright-colored syrups and lukewarm water, I amused +myself by glancing over the little stack of records on the table. They +were, of course, nearly all Italian, but I came upon three that I knew +well: "_Loch Lomond_," "_Old Folks at Home_" and "_So Long, Letty_." It +was like meeting a party of old friends in a strange land. I tried the +later record, and though it was not very clear, for the captain's supply +of needles had run out and he had been reduced to using ordinary pins, +it was startling to hear Charlotte Greenwood's familiar voice caroling +"_So long, so long, Letty_," there on the borders of Bosnia, with a +picket of curious Jugoslavs, rifles across their knees, seated on the +rocky hillside, barely a stone's throw away. Still, come to think about +it, the war produced many contrasts quite as strange, as, for example, +when the New York Irish, the old 69th, crossed the Rhine with the +regimental band playing "_The Sidewalks of New York_." + +We touched at Sebenico, which is forty knots down the coast from Zara, +in order to accept an invitation to lunch with Lieutenant-General +Montanari, who commands all the Italian troops in Dalmatia. Now before +we started down the Adriatic we had been warned that, because of +President Wilson's attitude on the Fiume question, the feeling against +Americans ran very high, and that from the Italians we must be prepared +for coldness, if not for actual insults. Well, this luncheon at Sebenico +was an example of the insults we received and the coldness with which we +were treated. Because our destroyer was late, half a hundred busy +officers delayed their midday meal for two hours in order not to sit +down without us. The table was decorated with American flags, and other +American flags had been hand-painted on the menus. And, as a final +affront, a destroyer had been sent across the Adriatic Sea to obtain +lobsters because the general had heard that my wife was particularly +fond of them. After that experience don't talk to me about Southern +hospitality. Though the Italians bitterly resent President Wilson's +interference in an affair which they consider peculiarly their own, +their resentment does not extend to the President's countrymen. Their +attitude is aptly illustrated by an incident which took place at the +mess of a famous regiment of Bersaglieri, when the picture of President +Wilson, which had hung on the wall of the mess-hall, opposite that of +the King, was taken down--and an American flag hung in its place. + +The most interesting building in Sebenico is the cathedral, which was +begun when America had yet to be discovered. The chief glory of the +cathedral is its exterior, with its superb carved doors, its countless +leering, grinning gargoyles--said to represent the evil spirits expelled +from the church--and a broad frieze, running entirely around the +edifice, composed of sculptured likenesses of the architects, artists, +sculptors, masons, and master-builders who participated in its +construction. Put collars, neckties, and derby hats on some of them and +you would have striking likenesses of certain labor leaders of to-day. +The next time a building of note is erected in this country the +countenances of the bricklayers, hod-carriers, and walking delegates +might be immortalized in some such fashion. I offer the suggestion to +the labor-unions for what it is worth. + +Throughout all the years of Austrian domination the citizens of Sebenico +remained loyal to their Italian traditions, as is proved by the +medallions ornamenting the façade of the cathedral, each of which bears +the image of a saint. One of these sculptured saints, it was pointed out +to me, has the unmistakable features of Victor Emanuel I, another those +of Garibaldi. Thus did the Italian workmen of their day cunningly +express their defiance of Austria's tyranny by ornamenting one of her +most splendid cathedrals with the heads of Italian heroes. Imagine +carving the heads of Elihu Root and Charles E. Hughes on the façade of +Tammany Hall! + +Next to the cathedral, the most interesting building in Sebenico is the +insect-powder factory. It is a large factory and does a thriving +business, the need for its product being Balkan-wide. If, for upward of +five months, you had fought nightly engagements with the _cimex +lectularius_, you would understand how vital is an ample supply of +powder. Believe me or not, as you please, but in many parts of Dalmatia +and Albania we were compelled to defend our beds against nocturnal +raiding-parties by raising veritable ramparts of insect-powder, very +much as in Flanders we threw up earthworks against the assaults of the +Hun, while in Monastir the only known way of obtaining sleep is to set +the legs of one's bed in basins filled with kerosene. + +Four hours steaming south from Sebenico brought us to Spalato, the +largest city of Dalmatia and one of the most picturesquely situated +towns in the Levant. It owes its name to the great palace (_palatium_) +of Diocletian, within the precincts of which a great part of the old +town is built and around which have sprung up its more modern suburbs. +Cosily ensconced between the stately marble columns which formed the +palace's façade are fruit, tobacco, barber, shoe, and tailor shops, +whose proprietors drive a roaring trade with the sailors from the +international armada assembled in the harbor. A great hall, which had +probably originally been one of the vestibules of the palace, was +occupied by the Knights of Columbus, the place being in charge of a +khaki-clad priest, Father Mullane, of Johnstown, Pa., who twice daily +dispensed true American hospitality, in the form of hot doughnuts and +mugs of steaming coffee, to the blue-jackets from the American ships. As +there was no coal to be had in the town, he made the doughnuts with the +aid of a plumber's blowpipe. In the course of our conversation Father +Mullane mentioned that he was living with the Serbian bishop--at least I +think he was a bishop-of Spalato. + +"I suppose he speaks English or French," I remarked. + +"He does not," was the answer. + +"Then you must have picked up some Serb or Italian," I hazarded. + +"Niver a wurrd of thim vulgar tongues do I know," said he. + +"Then how do you and the bishop get along?" + +"Shure," said Father Mullane, in the rich brogue which is, I imagine, +something of an affectation, "an' what is the use of bein' educated for +the church if we were not able to converse with ease an' fluency in +iligant an' refined Latin?" + +When we were leaving Spalato, Father Mullane presented us with a _Bon +Voyage_ package which contained cigarettes, a box of milk chocolate, and +a five-pound tin of gum-drops. The cigarettes we smoked, the chocolate +we ate, but the gum-drops we used for tips right across the Balkans. In +lands whose people have not known the taste of sugar for five years we +found that a handful of gum-drops would accomplish more than money. A +few men with Father Mullane's resource, tact, and sense of humor would +do more than all the diplomats under the roof of the Hotel Crillon to +settle international differences and make the nations understand each +other. + +I had been warned by archæological friends, before I went to Dalmatia, +that the ruins of Salona, which once was the capital of Roman Dalmatia +and the site of the summer palace of Diocletian, would probably +disappoint me. They date from the period of Roman decadence, so my +learned friends explained, and, though following Roman traditions, +frequently show traces of negligence, a fact which is accounted for by +the haste with which the ailing and hypochondriac Emperor sought to +build himself a retreat from the world. Still, the little excursion--for +Salona is only five miles from Spalato--provided much that was worth the +seeing: a partially excavated amphitheater, a long row of stone +sarcophagi lying in a trench, one or two fine gates, and some +beautifully preserved mosaics. I must confess, however, that I was more +interested in the modern aspects of this region than in its glorious +past, for, standing upon the massive walls of the Roman city, I looked +down upon a panorama of power such as Diocletian had never pictured in +his wildest dreams, for, moored in a long and impressive row, their +stern-lines made fast to the _Molo_, was a line of war-ships flying the +flags of England, France, Italy, and the United States. On the right of +the line, as befitted the fact that its commander was the senior naval +officer and in charge of all this portion of the coast, was Admiral +Andrews's flag-ship, the _Olympia_, but little changed, at least to the +casual glance, since that day, more than twoscore years ago, when she +blazed her way into Manila Bay and won for us a colonial empire. On her +bridge, outlined in brass tacks, I was shown Admiral Dewey's footprints, +just as he stood at the beginning of the battle when he gave the order +"You may fire when you are ready, Gridley." + +Of the 18,000 inhabitants of Spalato, less than a tenth are Italian, the +general character of the town and the sympathies of its inhabitants +being strongly pro-Slav. In fact, its streets were filled with Jugoslav +soldiers, many of them still wearing the uniforms of the Austrian +regiments in which they had served but with Serbian _képis_, while +others looked strangely familiar in khaki uniforms furnished them by the +United States. It being warm weather, most of the men wore their coats +unbuttoned, thereby displaying a considerable expanse of hairy chest or +violently colored underwear and producing a somewhat negligée effect. +Because of the presence in the town of the Jugoslav soldiery, the crews +of the Italian war-ships were not permitted to go ashore with the +sailors of the other nations, as Admiral Andrews feared that their +presence might provoke unpleasant incidents. Hence their "shore leave" +had, for nearly six months, been confined to the narrow concrete _Molo_, +where they were permitted to stroll in the evenings and where the +Italian girls of the town came to see them. For a Jugoslav girl to have +been seen in company with an Italian sailor would have meant her social +ostracism, if nothing worse. + +Though Italy will unquestionably insist on the cession of certain of the +Dalmatian islands, in order, as I have already pointed out, to assure +herself a defensible eastern frontier, and though she will ask for Zara +and possibly for Sebenico on the ground of their preponderantly Italian +character, I believe that she is prepared to abandon her original claims +to Dalmatia, which is, when all is said and done, almost purely +Slavonian, Jugoslavia thus obtaining nearly 550 miles of coast. Now I +will be quite frank and say that when I went to Dalmatia I was strongly +opposed to the extension of Italian rule over that region. And I still +believe that it would be a political mistake. But, after seeing the +country from end to end and talking with the Italian officials who have +been temporarily charged with its administration, I have become +convinced that they have the best interests of the people genuinely at +heart and that the Dalmatians might do worse, so far as justice and +progress are concerned, than to intrust their future to the guidance of +such men. + +It had been our original intention to steam straight south from Spalato +to the Bocche di Cattaro and Montenegro, but, being foot-loose and free +and having plenty of coal in the _Sirio's_ bunkers, we decided to make a +detour in order to visit the Curzolane Islands. In case you cannot +recall its precise situation, I might remind you that the Curzolane +Archipelago, consisting of several good-sized islands--Brazza, Lésina, +Lissa, Mélida, and Curzola--and a great number of smaller ones, lies off +the Dalmatian coast, almost opposite Ragusa. From Spalato we laid our +course due south, past Solta, famed for its honey produced from rosemary +and the cistus-rose; skirted the wooded shores of Brazza, the largest +island of the group, rounded Capo Pellegrino and entered the lovely +harbor of Lésina. We did not anchor but, slowing to half-speed, made +the circuit of the little port, running close enough to the shore to +obtain pictures of the famous Loggia built by Sanmicheli, the Fondazo, +the ancient Venetian arsenal, and the crumbling Spanish fort, perched +high on a crag above the town. Then south by west again, past Lissa, the +western-most island of the group, where an Italian fleet under Persano +was defeated and destroyed by an Austrian squadron under Tegetthof in +1866. A marble lion in the local cemetery commemorated the victory and +marked the resting-places of the Austrian dead, but when the Italians +took possession of the island after the Armistice they changed the +inscription on the monument so that it now commemorates their final +victory over Austria. It was not, I think, a very sportsmanlike +proceeding. + +Leaving Lissa to starboard, we steamed through the Canale di +Sabbioncello, with exquisite panoramas unrolling on either hand, and +dropped anchor off the quay of Curzola, where the governor of the +islands, Admiral Piazza, awaited us with his staff. In spite of the +bleakness of the surrounding mountains, Curzola is one of the most +exquisitely beautiful little towns that I have ever seen. The next time +you are in the Adriatic you should not fail to go there. Time and the +hand of man--for the people are a color-loving race--have given many +tints, soft and bright, to its roofs, towers, and ramparts. It is a town +of dim, narrow, winding streets, of steep flights of worn stone steps, +of moss-covered archways, and of some of the most splendid specimens of +the domestic architecture of the Middle Ages that exist outside of the +Street of the Crusaders in Rhodes. The sole modern touches are the +costumes of the islanders, and they are sufficiently picturesque not to +spoil the picture. How the place has escaped the motion-picture people I +fail to understand. (As a matter of fact, it hasn't, for I took with me +an operator and a camera--the first the islanders had ever seen.) +Besides the Cathedral of San Marco, with its splendid doors, its +exquisitely carved choir-stalls black with age and use, its choir +balustrade and pulpit of translucent alabaster, and its dim old +altar-piece by Tintoretto, the town boasts the Loggia or council +chambers, the palace of the Venetian governors, the noble mansion of the +Arnieri, and, brooding over all, a towering campanile, five centuries +old. The Lion of St. Mark, which appears on several of the public +buildings, holds beneath its paw a closed instead of an open +book--symbolizing, so I was told, the islanders' dissatisfaction with +certain laws of the Venetians. + +But the phase of my visit which I enjoyed the most was when Admiral +Piazza took us across the bay, on a Detroit-built submarine-chaser, to a +Franciscan monastery dating from the fifteenth century. We were met by +the abbot at the water-stairs, and, after being shown the beautiful +Venetian Gothic cloisters, with alabaster columns whose carving was +almost lacelike in its delicate tracery, we were led along a wooded path +beside the sea, over a carpet of pine-needles, to a cloistered +rose-garden, in which stood, amid a bower of blossoms, a blue and white +statue of the Virgin. The fragrance of the flowers in the little +enclosure was like the incense in a church, above our heads the great +pines formed a canopy of green, and the music was furnished by the birds +and the murmuring sea. Here we seemed a world away from the waiting +armies and the great gray battleships, from the quarrels of Latin and +Slav. It was the first real peace that I had known after five years of +war, and I should have liked to remain there longer. But Montenegro, +Albania, Macedonia, all the unhappy, war-torn lands of the Near East lay +before me, and I turned reluctantly away. But my thoughts keep harking +back to the little town beside the turquoise bay, to the restfulness of +its old, old buildings, to the perfume of its flowers, and the +whispering voice of its turquoise sea. So some day, when the world is +really at peace and there are no more wars to write about, I think that +I shall go back to where + + "Far, far from here, + The Adriatic breaks in a warm bay + Among the green Illyrian hills." + + + + +CHAPTER III + +THE CEMETERY OF FOUR EMPIRES + + +We stood on the forward deck of the _Sirio_ as she slipped southward, +through the placid waters of the Adriatic, at twenty knots an hour. Less +than a league away the Balkan mountains, savage, mysterious, forbidding, +rose in a rocky rampart against the eastern sky. + +"Did it ever occur to you," remarked the Italian officer who stood +beside me, a noted historian in his own land, "that four great empires +have died as a result of their lust for domination over the wretched +lands which lie beyond those mountains? Austria coveted Serbia--and the +empire of the Hapsburgs is in fragments now. Russia, seeing her +influence in the peninsula imperiled, hastened to the support of her +fellow Slavs--but Russia has gone down in red ruin, and the Romanoffs +are dead. Germany, seeking a gateway to the warm water, and a highway +to the East, seized on the excuse thus offered to launch her waiting +armies--and the empire reared by the Hohenzollerns is bankrupt and +broken. Turkey fought to retain her hold on such European territory as +still remained under the crescent banner. To-day a postmortem is about +to be held on the Turkish Empire and the House of Osman. Think of it! +Four great empires, four ancient dynasties, lie buried over there in the +Balkans. It is something more than a range of mountains at which we are +looking; it is the wall of a cemetery." + +Rada di Antivari is a U-shaped bay, the color of a turquoise, from whose +shores the Montenegrin mountains rise in tiers, like the seats of an +arena. We put in there unexpectedly because a _bora_, sweeping suddenly +down from the northwest, had lashed the Adriatic into an ugly mood and +our destroyer, whose decks were almost as near the water as those of a +submarine running awash, was not a craft that one would choose for +comfort in such weather. Nor was our feeling of security increased by +the knowledge that we were skirting the edges of one of the largest +mine-fields in the Adriatic. But the _Sirio_ had scarcely poked her +sharp nose around the end of the breakwater which provides the excuse +for dignifying the exposed roadstead of Antivari (with the accent on the +second syllable, so that it rhymes with "discovery") by the name of +harbor before I saw what we had stumbled upon some form of trouble. +There were three other Italian destroyers in the harbor but, instead of +being moored snugly alongside the quay, they were strung out in a +semblance of battle formation, so that their deck-guns, from which the +canvas muzzle-covers had been removed, could sweep the rocky heights +above and around them. A string of signal-flags broke out from our +masthead and was answered in like fashion by the flag-ship of the +flotilla, after which formal exchange of greetings our wireless began to +crackle and splutter in an animated explanation of our unexpected +appearance. Our hawsers had scarcely been made fast before a launch left +the flag-ship and came plowing toward us, a knot of white-uniformed +officers in the stern. From the blue rug with the Italian arms, which, +as I could see through my glasses, was draped over the stern-sheets, I +deduced that the commander of the flotilla was paying us a visit. + +"You have come at rather an unfortunate moment," he said after the +introductions were over. "Last night we were fired on by Jugoslavs on +the mountainside over there," indicating the heights across the harbor. +"In fact, the firing has just ceased. There must have been a thousand of +them or more, judging from the flashes. But I hope that madame will not +be alarmed, for she is really quite safe. They are firing at long range, +and the only danger is from a stray bullet. Still, it is most +embarrassing. On madame's account I am sorry." + +His manner was that of a host apologizing to a guest because the +children of the family have measles and at the same time attempting to +convince the guest that measles are hardly ever contagious. I relieved +his quite obvious embarrassment by assuring him that Mrs. Powell much +preferred taking chances with snipers' bullets to the discomfort of a +destroyer in an ugly sea; and that, having journeyed six thousand miles +for the express purpose of seeing what was happening in the Balkans, we +would be disappointed if nothing happened at all. + +When I left Paris for the Adriatic I carried with me the impression, as +the result of conversations with members of the various peace +delegations, that the people of Montenegro were almost unanimously in +favor of annexation to Serbia, thereby becoming a part of the new +Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes. But before I had spent +twenty-four hours in Montenegro itself I discovered that on the subject +of the political future of their little country the Montenegrins are +very far from being of the same mind. And, being a simple, primitive +folk, and strong believers in the superiority of the bullet to the +ballot, instead of sitting down and arguing the matter, they take cover +behind a convenient rock and, when their political opponents pass by, +take pot-shots at them. + +My preconceived opinions about political conditions in Montenegro were +largely based on the knowledge that shortly after the signing of the +Armistice a Montenegrin National Assembly, so called, had met at +Podgoritza, and, after declaring itself in favor of the deposition of +King Nicholas and the Petrovitch dynasty, which has ruled in Montenegro +since William of Orange sat on the throne of England, voted for the +union of Montenegro with the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes. +Just how representative of the real sentiments of the nation was this +assembly I do not know, but that the sentiment in favor of such a +surrender of Montenegrin independence is far from being overwhelming +would seem to be proved by the fact that the Serbs, in order to hold the +territory thus given to them, have found it necessary to install a +Serbian military governor in Cetinje, to replace by Serbs all the +Montenegrin prefects, to raise a special gendarmerie recruited from men +who are known to be friendly to Serbia and officered by Serbs, and to +occupy this sister-state, which, it is alleged, requested union with +Serbia of its own free will, with two battalions of Serbian infantry. If +Montenegrin sentiment for the union is as overwhelming as Belgrade +claims, then it seems to me that the Serbs are acting in a rather +high-handed fashion. + +I talked with a good many people while I was in Montenegro, and I was +especially careful not to meet them through the medium of either Serbs +or Italians. From these conversations I learned that the Montenegrins +are divided into three factions. The first of these, and the smallest, +desires the return of the King. It represents the old conservative +element and is composed of the men who have fought under him in many +wars. The second faction, which is the noisiest and at present holds the +reins of power, advocates the annexation of Montenegro to Serbia and the +deposition of King Nicholas in favor of the Serbian Prince-Regent +Alexander. The third party, which, though it has no means of making its +desires known, is, I am inclined to believe, the largest, and which +numbers among its supporters the most level-headed and far-seeing men in +the country, while frankly distrustful of Serbian ambitions and +unwilling to submit to Serbian dictatorship, possesses sufficient vision +to recognize the political and commercial advantages which would accrue +to Montenegro were she to become an equal partner in a confederation of +those Jugoslav countries which claim the same racial origin. Most +thoughtful Montenegrins have always been in favor of a union of all the +southern Slavs, along the general lines, perhaps, of the Germanic +Confederation, but this must not be interpreted as implying that they +are in favor of a union merely of Montenegro with Serbia, which would +mean the absorption of the smaller country by the larger one. They are +determined that, if such a confederation is brought about, Serbia shall +not occupy the dictatorial position which Prussia did in Germany, and +that the Karageorgevitches shall not play a rôle analogous to that of +the Hohenzollerns. Montenegro, remember, threw off the Turkish yoke a +century and three-quarters before Serbia was able to achieve her +liberty, and the patriotic among her people feel that this hard-won, +long-held independence should not lightly be thrown away. + +It is not generally known, perhaps, that, when Austria declared war on +Serbia in August, 1914, an offensive and defensive alliance already +existed between Serbia, Greece, and Montenegro. We know how highly +Greece valued her signature to that treaty. Montenegro, with an area +two-thirds that of New Jersey, and a population less than that of +Milwaukee, could easily have used her weakness as an excuse for +standing aside, like Greece. Very likely Austria would not have molested +her and the little country would have been spared the horrors of a third +war within two years. But King Nicholas's conception of what constituted +loyalty and honor was different from Constantine's. Instead of accepting +the extensive territorial compensations offered by the Austrian envoy if +Montenegro would remain neutral, King Nicholas wired to the Serbian +Premier, M. Pachitch: "_Serbia may rely on the brotherly and +unconditional support of Montenegro in this moment, on which depends the +fate of the Serbian nation, as well as on any other occasion_," and took +the field at the head of 40,000 troops--all the men able to bear arms in +the little kingdom. + +It has been repeatedly asserted by his enemies that King Nicholas sold +out to the Austrians and that, therefore, he deserves neither sympathy +nor consideration. As to this I have no _direct_ knowledge. How could I? +But, after talking with nearly all of the leading actors in the +Montenegrin drama, it is my personal belief that the King, though guilty +of many indiscretions and errors of policy, did not betray his people. +I am not ignorant of the King's shortcomings in other respects. But in +this case I believe that he has been grossly maligned. If he did sell +out he drove an extremely poor bargain, for he is living in exile, in +extremely straitened circumstances, his only luxury a car which the +French Government loans him. It is difficult to believe that, had he +been a traitor to the Allied cause, the British, French, and Italian +governments would continue to recognize him, to pay him subventions, and +to treat him as a ruling sovereign. Certain American diplomats have told +me that they were convinced that the King had a secret understanding +with Austria, though they admitted quite frankly that their convictions +were based on suspicions which they could not prove. To offset this, a +very exalted personage, whose name for obvious reasons I cannot mention, +but whose integrity and whose sources of information are beyond +question, has given me his word that, to his personal knowledge, +Nicholas had neither a treaty nor a secret understanding with the enemy. + +"The propaganda against him had been so insidious and successful, +however," my informant concluded, "that even his own soldiers were +convinced that he had sold out to Austria and when the King attempted to +rally them as they were falling back from the positions on Mount +Lovtchen they jeered in his face, shouting that he had betrayed them. +Yet I, who was on the spot and who am familiar with all the facts, give +you my personal assurance that he had not." + +Nor did the King give up his sword to the Austrian commander at Grahovo, +as was reported in the European press. When, with three-quarters of his +country overrun by the Austrians, his chief of staff, Colonel Pierre +Pechitch of the Serbian Army, reported "_Henceforth all resistance and +all fighting against the enemy is impossible. There is no chance of the +situation improving_," King Nicholas, in the words of Baron Sonnino, +then Italian Foreign Minister, "preferred to withdraw into exile rather +than sign a separate peace." + +I may be wrong in my conclusions, of course; the cabinet ministers and +the ambassadors and the generals in whose honor and truthfulness I +believe may have deliberately deceived me, but, after a most +painstaking and conscientious investigation, I am convinced that we have +been misinformed and blinded by a propaganda against King Nicholas and +his people which has rarely been equaled in audacity of untruth and +dexterity of misrepresentation. To employ the methods used by certain +Balkan politicians in their attempted elimination of Montenegro as an +independent nation even Tammany Hall would be ashamed. + +When, upon the occupation of Montenegro by the Austrians, the King fled +to France and established his government at Neuilly, near Paris--just as +the fugitive Serbian Government was established at Corfu and the Belgian +at Le Havre--England, France, and Italy entered into an agreement to pay +him a subvention, for the maintenance of himself and his government, +until such time as the status of Montenegro was definitely settled by +the Peace Conference. England ceased paying her share of this subvention +early in the spring of 1919. When, a few weeks later, it was announced +that King Nicholas was preparing to go to Italy to visit his daughter, +Queen Elena, the French Minister to the court of Montenegro bluntly +informed him that the French Government regarded his proposed visit to +Italy as the first step toward his return to Montenegro, and that, +should he cross the French frontier, France would immediately break off +diplomatic relations with Montenegro and cease paying her share of the +subvention. This would seem to bear out the assertion, which I heard +everywhere in the Balkans, that France is bending every effort toward +building up a strong Jugoslavia in order to offset Italy's territorial +and commercial ambitions in the peninsula. The French indignantly +repudiate the suggestion that they are coercing the Montenegrin King. + +"How absurd!" exclaimed the officials with whom I talked. "We holding +King Nicholas a prisoner? The idea is preposterous. So far as France is +concerned, he can return to Montenegro whenever he chooses." + +Still, their protestations were not entirely convincing. Their attitude +reminded me of the millionaire whose daughter, it was rumored, had +eloped with the family chauffeur. + +"Sure, she can marry him if she wants to," he told the reporters. "I +have no objection. She is free, white, and twenty-one. But if she does +marry him I'll stop her allowance, cut her out of my will, and never +speak to her again." + +Because it has been my privilege to know many sovereigns and because I +have been honored with the confidence of several of them, I have become +to a certain extent immune from the spell which seems to be exercised +upon the commoner by personal contact with the Lord's anointed. Save +when I have had some definite mission to accomplish, I have never had +any overwhelming desire "to grasp the hand that shook the hand of John +L. Sullivan." To me it seems an impertinence to take the time of busy +men merely for the sake of being able to boast about it afterward to +your friends. But because, during my travels in Jugoslavia, I heard King +Nicholas repeatedly denounced by Serbian officials with far more +bitterness than they employed toward their late enemies and oppressors, +the Hapsburgs, I was frankly eager for an opportunity to form my own +opinions about Montenegro's aged ruler. The opportunity came when, upon +my return to Paris, I was informed that the King wished to meet me, he +being desirous, I suppose, of talking with one who had come so recently +from his own country. + +At that time the King, with the Queen, Prince Peter, and his two +unmarried daughters, was occupying a modest suite in the Hotel Meurice, +in the rue de Rivoli. He received me in a large, sun-flooded room +overlooking the Tuileries Gardens. The bald, broad-shouldered, rather +bent old man in the blue serge suit, with a tin ear-trumpet in his hand, +who rose from behind a great flat-topped desk to greet me, was a +startling contrast to the tall and vigorous figure, in the picturesque +dress of a Montenegrin chieftain, whom I had seen in Cetinje before the +war. I looked at him with interest, for he has been on the throne longer +than any living sovereign, he is the father-in-law of two Kings, and is +connected by marriage with half the royal houses of Europe, and he is +the last of that long line of patriarch-rulers who, leading their armies +in person, have for more than two centuries maintained the independence +of the Black Mountain and its people. + +[Illustration: HIS MAJESTY NICHOLAS I. KING OF MONTENEGRO + +He has been on the throne longer than any living sovereign, he is the +father-in-law of two kings, and is connected by marriage with half the +royal houses of Europe] + +King Nicholas, as is generally known, has been remarkably successful in +marrying off his daughters, two of them having married Kings, two +others grand dukes, while a fifth became the wife of a Battenberg +prince. Remembering this, I was sorely tempted to ask the King as to the +truth of a story which I had heard in Cetinje years before. An English +visitor to the Montenegrin capital had been invited to lunch at the +palace. During the meal the King asked his guest his impressions of +Montenegro. + +"Its scenery is magnificent," was the answer. "Its women are as +beautiful and its men as handsome as any I have ever seen. Their +costumes are marvelously picturesque. But the country appears to have no +exports, your Majesty." + +"Ah, my friend," replied the King, his eyes twinkling, "you forget my +daughters." + +Another story, which illustrates the King's quick wit, was told me by +his Majesty himself. When, some years before the Great War, Emperor +Francis Joseph, on a yachting cruise down the Adriatic, dropped anchor +in the Bocche di Cattaro, the Montenegrin mountaineers celebrated the +imperial visit by lighting bonfires on their mountain peaks, a mile +above the harbor. + +"I see that you dwell in the clouds," remarked Francis Joseph to +Nicholas, as they stood on the deck of the yacht after dinner watching +the pin-points of flame twinkling high above them. + +"Where else can I live?" responded the Montenegrin ruler. "Austria holds +the sea; Turkey holds the land; the sky is all that is left for +Montenegro." + +One of the things which the King told me during our conversation will, I +think, interest Americans. He said that when President Wilson arrived in +Paris he sent him an autograph letter, congratulating him on the great +part he had played in bringing peace to the world and requesting a +personal interview. + +"But he never granted me the interview," said the King sadly. "In fact, +he never acknowledged my letter." + +I attempted to bridge over the embarrassing pause by suggesting that +perhaps the letter had never been received, but he waved aside the +suggestion as unworthy of consideration. I gathered from what he said +that royal letters do not miscarry. + +"I realize that I am an old man and that my country is a very small and +unimportant one," he continued, "while your President is the ruler of a +great country and a very busy man. Still, we in Montenegro had heard so +much of America's chivalrous attitude toward small, weak nations that I +was unduly disappointed, perhaps, when my letter was ignored. I felt +that my age, and the fact that I have occupied the throne of Montenegro +for sixty years, entitled me to the consideration of a reply." + +But we have strayed far from the road which we were traveling. Let us +get back to the people of the mountains; I like them better than the +politicians. Antivari, which nestles in a hollow of the hills, three or +four miles inland from the port of the same name, is one of the most +fascinating little towns in all the Balkans. Its narrow, winding, +cobble-paved streets, shaded by canopies of grapevines and bordered by +rows of squat, red-tiled houses, their plastered walls tinted pale blue, +bright pink or yellow, and the amazingly picturesque costumes of its +inhabitants--slender, stately Montenegrin women in long coats of +turquoise-colored broad-cloth piped with crimson, Bosnians in skin-tight +breeches covered with arabesques of braid and jackets heavy with +embroidery, Albanians wearing the starched and pleated skirts of linen +known as _fustanellas_ and _comitadjis_ with cartridge-filled bandoliers +slung across their chests and their sashes bristling with assorted +weapons, priests of the Orthodox Church with uncut hair and beards, +wearing hats that look like inverted stovepipes, hook-nosed, +white-bearded, patriarchal-looking Turks in flowing robes and snowy +turbans, fierce-faced, keen-eyed mountain herdsmen in fur caps and coats +of sheepskin--all these combined to make me feel that I had intruded +upon the stage of a theater during a musical comedy performance, and +that I must find the exit and escape before I was discovered by the +stage-manager. If David Belasco ever visits Antivari he will probably +try to buy the place bodily and transport it to East Forty-fourth Street +and write a play around it. + +There were two gentlemen in Antivari whose actions gave me unalloyed +delight. One of them, so I was told, was the head of the local +anti-Serbian faction; the other, a human arsenal with weapons sprouting +from his person like leaves from an artichoke, was the chief of a +notorious band of _comitadjis_, as the Balkan guerrillas are called. +They walked up and down the main street of Antivari, arms over each +other's shoulders, heads close together, lost in conversation, but +glancing quickly over their shoulders every now and then to see if they +were in danger of being overheard, exactly like the plotters in a +motion-picture play. From the earnestness of their conversation, the +obvious awe in which they were held by the townspeople, and the +suspicious looks cast in their direction by the Serbian gendarmes, I +gathered that in the near future things were going to happen in that +region. Approaching them, I haltingly explained, in the few words of +Serbian at my command, that I was an American and that I wished to +photograph them. Upon comprehending my request they debated the question +for some moments, then shook their heads decisively. It was evident +that, in view of what they had in mind, they considered it imprudent to +have their pictures floating around as a possible means of +identification. But while they were discussing the matter I took the +liberty, without their knowledge, of photographing them anyway. It was +as well, perhaps, that they did not see me do it, for the _comitadji_ +chieftain had a long knife, two revolvers, and four hand-grenades in +his belt and a rifle slung over his shoulder. + +From Antivari to Valona by sea is about as far as from New York to +Albany by the Hudson, so that, leaving the Montenegrin port in the early +morning, we had no difficulty in reaching the Albanian one before +sunset. Before the war Valona--which, by the way, appears as Avlona on +most American-made maps--was an insignificant fishing village, but upon +Italy's occupation of Albania it became a military base of great +importance. Whenever we had touched on our journey down the coast we had +been warned against going to Valona because of the danger of contracting +fever. The town stands on the edge of a marsh bordering the shore and, +as no serious attempt has been made to drain the marsh or to clean up +the town itself, about sixty per cent of the troops stationed there are +constantly suffering from a peculiarly virulent form of malaria, similar +to the Chagres fever of the Isthmus. The danger of contracting it was +apparently considered very real, for, before we had been an hour in the +quarters assigned to us, officers began to arrive with safeguards of one +sort or another. One brought screens for all the windows; another +provided mosquito-bars for the beds; a third presented us with +disinfectant cubes, which we were to burn in our rooms several times +each day; a fourth made us a gift of quinine pills, two of which we were +to take hourly; still another of our hosts appeared with a dozen bottles +of _acqua minerale_ and warned us not to drink the local water, and, +finally, to ensure us against molestation by prowling natives, a couple +of sentries were posted beneath our windows. + +[Illustration: TWO CONSPIRATORS OF ANTIVARI + +They stood lost in conversation, heads close together, exactly like the +plotters in a motion picture play] + +"Valona isn't a particularly healthy place to live in, I gather?" I +remarked, by way of making conversation, to the officer who was our host +at dinner that evening. His face was as yellow as old parchment and he +was shaking with fever. + +"Well," he reluctantly admitted, "you must be careful not to be bitten +by a mosquito or you will get malaria. And don't drink the water or you +will contract typhoid. And keep away from the native quarter, for there +is always more or less smallpox in the bazaars. And don't go wandering +around the town after nightfall, for there's always a chance of some +fanatic putting a knife between your shoulders. Otherwise, there isn't +a healthier place in the world than Valona." + +Across the street from the building in which we were quartered was a +large mosque, which, judging from the scaffoldings around it, was under +repair. But though it seemed to be a large and important mosque, there +was no work going forward on it. I commented upon this one day to an +officer with whom I was walking. + +"Do you see those storks up there?" he asked, pointing to a pair of +long-legged birds standing beside their nest on the dome of the mosque. +"The stork is the sacred bird of Albania and if it makes its nest on a +building which is in course of construction all work on that building +ceases as long as the stork remains. A barracks we were erecting was +held up for several months because a stork decided to make its nest in +the rafters, whereupon the native workmen threw down their tools and +quit." + +"In my country it is just the opposite," I observed. "There, when the +stork comes, instead of stopping work they usually begin building a +nursery." + +I had long wished to cross Albania and Macedonia, from the Adriatic to +the Ægean, by motor, but the nearer we had drawn to Albania the more +unlikely this project had seemed of realization. We were assured that +there were no roads in the interior of the country or that such roads as +existed were quite impassable for anything save ox-carts; that the +country had been devastated by the fighting armies and that it would be +impossible to get food en route; that the mountains we must cross were +frequented by bandits and _comitadjis_ and that we would be exposed to +attack and capture; that, though the Italians might see us across +Albania, the Serbian and Greek frontier guards would not permit us to +enter Macedonia, and, as a final argument against the undertaking, we +were warned that the whole country reeked with fever. But when I told +the Governor-General of Albania, General Piacentini, what I wished to do +every obstacle disappeared as though at the wave of a magician's wand. + +"You will leave Valona early to-morrow morning," he said, after a short +conference with his Chief of Staff. "You will be accompanied by an +officer of my staff who was with the Serbian army on its retreat across +Albania to the sea. The country is well garrisoned and I do not +anticipate the slightest trouble, but, as a measure of precaution, a +detachment of soldiers will follow your car in a motor-truck. You will +spend the first night at Argirocastro, the second at Ljaskoviki, and the +third at Koritza, which is occupied by the French. I will wire our +diplomatic agent there to make arrangements with the Jugoslav +authorities for you to cross the Serbian border to Monastir, where we +still have a few troops engaged in salvage work. South of Monastir you +will be in Greek territory, but I will wire the officer in command of +the Italian forces at Salonika to take steps to facilitate your journey +across Macedonia to the Ægean." + +This journey across one of the most savage and least-known regions in +all Europe was arranged as simply and matter-of-factly as a clerk in a +tourist bureau would plan a motor trip through the White Mountains. With +the exception of one or two alterations in the itinerary made necessary +by tire trouble, the journey was made precisely as General Piacentini +planned it and so complete were the arrangements we found that meals +and sleeping quarters had been prepared for us in tiny mountain hamlets +whose very names we had never so much as heard before. + +Until its occupation by the Italians in 1917 Albania was not only the +least-known region in Europe; it was one of the least-known regions in +the world. Within sight of Italy, it was less known than many portions +of Central Asia or Equatorial Africa. And it is still a savage country; +a land but little changed since the days of Constantine and Diocletian; +a land that for more than twenty centuries has acknowledged no master +and, until the coming of the Italians, had known no law. Prior to the +Italian occupation there was no government in Albania in the sense in +which that word is generally used, there being, in fact, no civil +government now, the tribal organization which takes its place being +comparable to that which existed in Scotland under the Stuart Kings. + +The term Albanian would probably pass unrecognized by the great majority +of the inhabitants, who speak of themselves as _Skipétars_ and of their +country as _Sccupnj_. They are, most ethnologists agree, probably the +most ancient race in Europe, there being every reason to believe that +they are the lineal descendants of those adventurous Aryans who, leaving +the ancestral home on the shores of the Caspian, crossed the Caucasus +and entered Europe in the earliest dawn of history. One of the tribes of +this migrating host, straying into these lonely valleys, settled there +with their flocks and herds, living the same life, speaking the same +tongue, following the same customs as their Aryan ancestors, quite +indifferent to the great changes which were taking place in the world +without their mountain wall. Certain it is that Albania was already an +ancient nation when Greek history began. Unlike the other primitive +populations of the Balkan peninsula, which became in time either +Hellenized, Latinized or Slavonicized, the Albanians have remained +almost unaffected by foreign influences. It strikes me as a strange +thing that the courage and determination with which this remarkable race +has maintained itself in its mountain stronghold all down the ages, and +the grim and unyielding front which it has shown to innumerable +invaders, have evoked so little appreciation and admiration in the +outside world. History contains no such epic as that of the Albanian +national hero, George Castriota, better known as Scanderbeg, who, with +his ill-armed mountaineers, overwhelmed twenty-three Ottoman armies, one +after another.[A] + +Picture, if you please, a country remarkably similar in its physical +characteristics to the Blue Ridge Region of our own South, with the same +warm summers and the same brief, cold winters, peopled by the same +poverty-stricken, illiterate, quarrelsome, suspicious, arms-bearing, +feud-practising race of mountaineers, and you will have the best +domestic parallel of Albania that I can give you. Though during the +summer months extremely hot days are followed by bitterly cold nights, +and though fever is prevalent along the coast and in certain of the +valleys, Albania is, climatically speaking, "a white man's country." Its +mountains are believed to contain iron, coal, gold, lead, and copper, +but the internal condition of the country has made it quite impossible +to investigate its mineral resources, much less to develop them. With +the exception of Valona, which has been developed into a tolerably good +harbor, there are no ports worthy of the name, Durazzo, Santi Quaranta, +and San Giovanni de Medua being mere open roadsteads, almost unprotected +from the sea winds. There are no railroads in Albania, and the +indifference of the Turkish Government, the corruption of the local +chiefs, and the blood-feuds in which the people are almost constantly +engaged, have resulted in a total absence of good roads. This condition +has been remedied by the Italians, however, who, in order to facilitate +their military operations, constructed a system of highways very nearly +equal to those they built in the Alps. Though the greater part of the +country is a stranger to the plow, the small areas which are under +cultivation produce excellent olive oil, wine of a tolerable quality, a +strong but moderately good tobacco, and considerable grain; Albania, in +spite of its primitive agricultural methods, furnishing most of the corn +supply of the Dalmatian coast. + +Albania, so far as I am aware, is the only country where you can buy a +wife on the instalment plan, just as you would buy a piano or an +encyclopedia or a phonograph. It is quite true that there are plenty of +countries where women can be purchased--in Circassia, for example, and +in China, and in the Solomon Group--but in those places the prospective +bridegroom is compelled to pay down the purchase price in cash, not +being afforded the convenience of opening an account. In Albania, +however, such things are better done, a partial payment on the purchase +price of the girl being paid to her parents when the engagement takes +place, after which she is no longer offered for sale, but is set aside, +like an article on which a deposit has been made, until the final +instalment has been paid, when she is delivered to her future husband. + +Albania is likewise the only country that I know of where every one +concerned becomes indignant if a murderer is sent to prison. The +relatives of the dear departed resent it because they feel that the +judge has cheated them out of their revenge, which they would probably +obtain, were the murderer at large, by putting a knife or a pistol +bullet between his shoulders. The murderer, of course, objects to the +sentence both because he does not like imprisonment and because he +believes that he could escape from the relatives of his victim were he +given his freedom. If he or his friends have any money, however, the +affair is usually settled on a financial basis, the feud is called off, +the murderer is pardoned, and every one concerned, save only the dead +man, is as pleased and friendly as though nothing had ever happened to +interrupt their friendly relations. A quaint people, the Albanians. + +In order to develop the resources of the country and to transform its +present poverty into prosperity, Italy has already inaugurated an +extensive scheme of public works, which includes the reclamation of the +marshes, the reforestation of the mountains, the reconstruction of the +highways, the improvement of the ports, and the construction of a +railway straight across Albania, from the coast at Durazzo to Monastir, +in Serbian Macedonia, where it will connect with the line from Belgrade +to Salonika. This railway will follow the route of one of the most +important arteries of the Roman Empire, the Via Egnatia, that mighty +military and commercial highway, a trans-Adriatic continuation of the +Via Appia, which, starting from Dyracchium, the modern Durazzo, crossed +the Cavaia plain to the Skumbi, climbed the slopes of the Candavian +range, and traversing Macedonia and Thrace, ended at the Bosphorus, thus +linking the capitals of the western and the eastern empires. We traveled +this age-old highway, down which the four-horse chariots of the Cæsars +had rumbled two thousand years ago, in another sort of chariot, with the +power of twenty times four horses beneath its sloping hood. This will +entitle us in future years to listen with the condescension of pioneers +to the tales of the tourists who make the same trans-Balkan journey in a +comfortable _wagon-lit_, with hot and cold running water and electric +lights and a dining-car ahead. It is a great thing to have seen a +country in the pioneer stage of its existence. + +In that portion of Southern Albania known as North Epirus we motored for +an entire day through a region dotted with what had been, apparently, +fairly prosperous towns and villages but which are now heaps of +fire-blackened ruins. This wholesale devastation, I was informed to my +astonishment, was the work of the Greeks, who, at about the time the +Germans were horrifying the civilized world by their conduct in +Belgium, were doing precisely the same thing, it is said, but on a far +more extensive scale, in Albania. As a result of these atrocities, +perpetrated by a so-called Christian and professedly civilized nation, a +large number of Albanian towns and villages were destroyed by fire or +dynamite. Though I have been unable to obtain any reliable figures, the +consensus of opinion among the Albanians, the French and Italian +officials, and the American missionaries and relief workers with whom I +talked is that between 10,000 and 12,000 men, women, and children were +shot, bayoneted, or burned to death, at least double that number died +from exposure and starvation, and an enormous number--I have heard the +figure placed as high as 200,000--were rendered homeless. The stories +which I heard of the treatment to which the Albanian women were +subjected are so revolting as to be unprintable. We spent a night at +Ljaskoviki (also spelled Gliascovichi, Leskovik and Liascovik), +three-quarters of which had been destroyed. Out of a population which, I +was told, originally numbered about 8,000, only 1,200 remain. + +[Illustration: THE HEAD MEN OF LJASKOVIKI, ALBANIA, WAITING TO BID MAJOR +AND MRS. POWELL FAREWELL] + +Though the great majority of the victims were Mohammedans, the +outrages were not directly due to religious causes but were inspired +mainly by greed for territory. When, upon the erection of Albania into +an independent kingdom in 1913, the Greeks were ordered by the Powers to +withdraw from North Epirus, on which they had been steadily encroaching +and which they had come to look upon as inalienably their own, they are +reported to have begun a systematic series of outrages upon the civil +population of the region for which a fitting parallel can be found only +in the Turkish massacres in Armenia or the horrors of Bolshevik rule in +Russia. In their determination to secure Southern Albania for +themselves, the Greeks apparently adopted the policy followed with such +success in Armenia by the Turks, who asserted cynically that "one cannot +make a state without inhabitants." + +I do not think that the Greeks attempt to deny these atrocities--the +evidence is far too conclusive for that--but even as great a Greek as M. +Venizelos justifies them on the ground that they were provoked by the +Albanians. That such things could happen without arousing horror and +condemnation throughout the civilized world is due to the fact that in +the summer of 1914 the attention of the world was focused on events in +France and Belgium. I have no quarrel with the Greeks and nothing is +further from my desire than to engage in what used to be known as +"muck-raking," but I am reporting what I saw and heard in Albania +because I believe that the American people ought to know of it. Taken in +conjunction with the behavior of the Greek troops in Smyrna in the +spring of 1918, it should better enable us to form an opinion as to the +moral fitness of the Greeks to be entrusted with mandates over backward +peoples. + +Though Albania is an Italian protectorate, the Albanians, in spite of +all that Italy is doing toward the development of the country, do not +want Italian protection. This is scarcely to be wondered at, however, in +view of the attitude of another untutored people, the Egyptians, who, +though they owe their amazing prosperity solely to British rule, would +oust the British at the first opportunity which offered. Though the +Italians are distrusted because the Albanians question their +administrative ability and because they fear that they will attempt to +denationalize them, the French are regarded with a hatred which I have +seldom seen equaled. This is due, I imagine, to the belief that the +French are allied with their hereditary enemies, the Greeks and the +Serbs, and to France's iron-handed rule, which was exemplified when +General Sarrail, commanding the army of the Orient, ordered the +execution of the President of the short-lived Albanian Republic which +was established at Koritza. As a matter of fact, the Albanians, though +quite unfitted for independence, are violently opposed to being placed +under the protection of any nation, unless it be the United States or +England, in both of which they place implicit trust. I was astonished to +learn that the few Americans who have penetrated Albania since the +war--missionaries, Red Cross workers, and one or two investigators for +the Peace Conference--have encouraged the natives in the belief that the +United States would probably accept a mandate for Albania. Whether they +did this in order to make themselves popular and thereby facilitate +their missions, or because of an abysmal ignorance of American public +sentiment, I do not know, but the fact remains that they have raised +hopes in the breasts of thousands of Albanians which can never be +realized. Everything considered, I think that the Albanians might do +worse than to entrust their political future to the guidance of the +Italians, who, in addition to having brought law, order, justice, and +the beginnings of prosperity to a country which never had so much as a +bowing acquaintance with any one of them before, seem to have the best +interests of the people genuinely at heart. + +Leaving Koritza, a clean, well-kept town of perhaps 10,000 people, which +was occupied when we were there by a battalion of black troops from the +French Sudan and some Moroccans, we went snorting up the Peristeri Range +by an appallingly steep and narrow road, higher, higher, always higher, +until, to paraphrase Kipling, we had + + "One wheel on the Horns o' the Mornin', + An' one on the edge o' the Pit, + An' a drop into nothin' beneath us + As straight as a beggar could spit." + +But at last, when I was beginning to wonder whether our wheels could +find traction if the grade grew much steeper, we topped the summit of +the pass and looked down on Macedonia. Below us the forested slopes of +the mountains ran down, like the folds of a great green rug lying +rumpled on an oaken floor, to meet the bare brown plains of that +historic land where marched and fought the hosts of Philip of Macedon, +and of Alexander, his son. There are few more splendid panoramas in the +world; there is none over which history has cast so magic a spell, for +this barren, dusty land has been the arena in which the races of eastern +Europe have battled since history began. Within its borders are +represented all the peoples who are disputing the reversion of the +Turkish possessions in Europe. Macedonia might be described, indeed, as +the very quintessence of the near eastern question. + +With brakes a-squeal we slipped down the long, steep gradients to +Florina, where Greek gendarmes, in British sun-helmets and khaki, +lounged at the street-crossings and patronizingly waved us past. Thence +north by the ancient highway which leads to Monastir, the parched and +yellow fields on either side still littered with the débris of +war--broken _camions_ and wagons, shattered cannon, pyramids of +ammunition-cases, vast quantities of barbed wire--and sprinkled with +white crosses, thousands and thousands of them, marking the places where +sleep the youths from Britain, France, Italy, Russia, Serbia, Canada, +India, Australia, Africa, who fell in the Last Crusade. + +Monastir is a filthy, ill-paved, characteristically Turkish town, which, +before its decimation by the war, was credited with having some 60,000 +inhabitants. Of these about one-half were Turks and one-quarter Greeks, +the remaining quarter of the inhabitants being composed of Serbs, Jews, +Albanians, and Bulgars. Those of its buildings which escaped the great +conflagration which destroyed half the town were terribly shattered by +the long series of bombardments, so that to-day the place looks like San +Francisco after the earthquake and Baltimore after the fire. In the +suburbs are immense supplies of war _matériel_ of all sorts, mostly +going to waste. I saw thousands of camions, ambulances, caissons, and +wagons literally falling apart from neglect, and this in a country which +is almost destitute of transport. Though the town was packed with +Serbian troops, most of whom are sleeping and eating in the open, no +attempt was being made, so far as I could see, to repair the shell-torn +buildings, to clean the refuse-littered streets, or to afford the +inhabitants even the most nominal police protection. The crack of rifles +and revolvers is as frequent in the streets of Monastir as the bang of +bursting tires on Fifth Avenue. A Serbian sentry, on duty outside the +house in which I was sleeping, suddenly loosed off a clip of cartridges +in the street, for no reason in the world, it seemed, than because he +liked to hear the noise! Dead bodies are found nearly every morning. +Murders are so common that they do not provoke even passing comment. In +the night there comes a sharp bark of an automatic or the shattering +roar of a hand-grenade (which, since the war proved its efficacy, has +become the most recherché weapon for private use in these regions), a +clatter of feet, and a "Hello! Another killing." That is all. Life is +the cheapest thing there is in the Balkans. + +The only really clean place we found in Monastir was the American Red +Cross Hospital, an extremely well-managed and efficient institution, +which was under the direction of a young American woman, Dr. Frances +Flood, who, with a single woman companion, Miss Jessup, pluckily +remained at her post throughout the greater part of the war. The +officers who during the war achieved rows of ribbons for having acted as +messenger boys between the War Department and the foreign military +missions in Washington, would feel a trifle embarrassed, I imagine, if +they knew what this little American woman did to win _her_ decorations. + +It is in the neighborhood of one hundred and fifty miles from Monastir +to Salonika across the Macedonian plain and the road is one of the very +worst in Europe. Deep ruts, into which the car sometimes slipped almost +to its hubs, and frequent gullies made driving, save at the most +moderate speed, impossible, while, as many of the bridges were broken, +and without signs to warn the travelers of their condition, we more than +once barely saved ourselves from plunging through the gaping openings to +disaster. The vast traffic of the fighting armies had ground the roads +into yellow dust which rose in clouds as dense as a London fog, while +the waves of heat from the sun-scorched plains beat against our faces +like the blast from an open furnace door. Despite its abominable +condition, the road was alive with traffic: droves of buffalo, black, +ungainly, broad-horned beasts, their elephant-like hides caked with +yellow mud; woolly waves of sheep and goats driven by wild mountain +herdsmen in high fur caps and gaudy sashes; caravans of camels, swinging +superciliously past on padded feet, laden with supplies for the interior +or salvaged war material for the coast; clumsy carts, painted in strange +designs and screaming colors, with great sharpened stakes which looked +as though they were intended for purposes of torture, but whose real +duty is to keep the top-heavy loads in place. + +Though the slopes of the Rhodope and the Pindus are clothed with +splendid forests, it is for the most part a flat and treeless land, +dotted with clusters of filthy hovels made of sun-dried brick and with +patches of discouraged-looking vegetation. As Macedonia (its inhabitants +pronounce it as though the first syllable were _mack_) was once the +granary of the East, I had expected to see illimitable fields of waving +grain, but such fields as we did see were generally small and poor. +Guarding them against the hovering swarms of blackbirds were many +scarecrows, rigged out in the uniforms and topped by the helmets of the +men whose bones bleach amid the grain. In Switzerland they make a very +excellent red wine called _Schweizerblut_, because the grapes from which +it is made are grown on soil reddened by the blood of the Swiss who fell +on the battlefield of Morat. If blood makes fine wine, then the best +wine in all the world should come from these Macedonian plains, for they +have been soaked with blood since ever time began. + +Our halfway town was Vodena, which seemed, after the heat and dust of +the journey, like an oasis in the desert. Scores of streams, issuing +from the steep slopes of the encircling hills, race through the town in +a network of little canals and fling themselves from a cliff, in a +series of superb cascades, into the wooded valley below. Philip of +Macedon was born near Vodena, and there, in accordance with his wishes, +he was buried. You can see the tomb, flanked by ever-burning candles, +though you may not enter it, should you happen to pass that way. He +chose his last resting-place well, did the great soldier, for the +overarching boughs of ancient plane-trees turn the cobbled streets of +the little town into leafy naves, the air is heavy with the scent of +orange and oleander, and the place murmurs with the pleasant sound of +plashing water. + +Beyond Vodena the road improved for a time and we fled southward at +greater speed, the telegraph poles leaping at us out of the yellow +dust-haze like the pikes of giant sentinels. At Alexander's Well, an +ancient cistern built from marble blocks and filled with crystal-clear +water, we paused to refill our boiling radiator, and paused again, a few +miles farther on, at the wretched, mud-walled village which, according +to local tradition, is the birthplace of the man who made himself master +of three continents, changed the face of the world, and died at +thirty-three. + +Then south again, south again, across the seemingly illimitable plains, +until, topping a range of bare brown hills, there lay spread before us +the gleaming walls and minarets of that city where Paul preached to the +Thessalonians. To the westward Olympus seemed to verify the assertions +of the ancient Greeks that its summit touched the sky. To the east, +outlined against the Ægean's blue, I could see the peninsula of +Chalkis, with its three gaunt capes, Cassandra, Longos, and Athos, +reaching toward Thrace, the Hellespont and Asia Minor, like the claw of +a vulture stretched out to snatch the quarry which the eagles killed. + +[Footnote A: Portions of this sketch of the Albanians are drawn from an +article which I wrote some years ago for _The Independent_. E.A.P.] + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +UNDER THE CROSS AND THE CRESCENT + + +Salonika is superbly situated. To gain it from the seaward side you sail +through a portal formed by the majestic peaks of Athos and Olympus. It +reclines on the bronze-brown Macedonian hills, white-clad, like a young +Greek goddess, with its feet laved by the blue waters of the Ægean. (I +have used this simile elsewhere in the book, but it does not matter.) +The scores of slender minarets which rise above the housetops belie the +crosses on the Greek flags which flaunt everywhere, hinting that the +city, though it has passed under Christian rule, is at heart still +Moslem. Indeed, barely a tenth of the 200,000 inhabitants are of the +ruling race, for Salonika is that rare thing in modern Europe, a city +whose population is by majority Jewish. There were hook-nosed, +dark-skinned traders from Judea here, no doubt, as far back as the days +when Salonika was but a way-station on the great highroad which linked +the East with Rome, but it was the Jews expelled from Spain by Ferdinand +and Isabella who transformed the straggling Turkish town into one of the +most prosperous cities of the Levant by making it their home. And to-day +the Jewish women of Salonika, the older ones at least, wear precisely +the same costume that their great-grandmother wore in Spain before the +persecution--a symbol and a reminder of how the Israelites were hunted +by the Christians before they found refuge in a Moslem land. + +There are no less than eight distinct ways of spelling and pronouncing +the city's name. To the Greeks, who are its present owners, it is +Saloniki or Saloneke, according to the method of transliterating the +_epsilon_; it is known to the Turks, who misruled it for five hundred +years, as Selanik; the British call it Salonica, with the accent on the +second syllable; the French Salonique; the Italians Salonnico, while the +Serbs refer to it as Solun. The best authorities seem to have agreed, +however, on Salonika, with the accent on the "i," which is pronounced +like "e," so that it rhymes with "paprika." But these are all +corruptions and abbreviations, for the city was originally named +Thessalonica, after the sister of Alexander of Macedon, and thus +referred to in the two epistles which St. Paul addressed to the church +he founded there. Owing to the variety of its religious sects, Salonika +has a superfluity of Sabbaths as well as of names, Friday being observed +by the Moslems, Saturday by the Jews, and Sunday by the Christians. +Perhaps it would be putting it more accurately to say that there is no +Sabbath at all, for the inhabitants are so eager to make money that +business is transacted on every day of the seven. + +Besides the great colony of Orthodox Jews in Salonika, there is a sect +of renegades known as Dounmé, or Deunmeh, who number perhaps 20,000 in +all. These had their beginnings in the _Annus Mirabilis_, when a Jewish +Messiah, Sabatai Sevi of Smyrna, arose in the Levant. He preached a +creed which was a first cousin of those believed in by our own +Anabaptists and Seventh Day Adventists. The name and the fame of him +spread across the Near East like fire in dry grass. Every ghetto in +Turkey had accepted him; his ritual was adopted by every synagogue; the +Jews gave themselves over to penance and preparation. For a year honesty +reigned in the Levant. Then the prophet set out for Constantinople to +beard the Sultan in his palace and, so he announced, to lead him in +chains to Zion. That was where Sabatai Sevi made his big mistake. For +the Commander of the Faithful was from Missouri, so far as Sabatai +Sevi's claims to divinity were concerned. + +"Messiahs can perform miracles," the Sultan said. "Let me see you +perform one. My Janissaries shall make a target of you. If you are of +divine origin, as you claim, the arrows will not harm you. And, in any +event, it will be an interesting experiment." + +[Illustration: THE ANCIENT WALLS OF SALONIKA + +Before us we saw the yellow walls and crenellated towers of that city +where Paul preached to the Thessalonians] + +Now Sabatai evidently had grave doubts about his self-assumed divinity +being arrow-proof, for he protested vigorously against the proposal to +make a human pin-cushion of him, whereupon the Sultan, his suspicions +now confirmed, gave him his choice between being impaled upon a stake, a +popular Turkish pastime of the period, or of renouncing Judaism and +accepting the faith of Islam. Preferring to be a live coward to an +impaled martyr, he chose the latter, yet such was his influence with +the Jews that thousands of his adherents voluntarily embraced the +religion of Mohammed. The Dounmé of Salonika are the descendants of +these renegades. Two centuries of waiting have not dimmed their faith in +the eventual coming of their Messiah. So there they wait, equally +distrusted by Jews and Moslems, though they form the wealthiest portion +of the city's population. But they live apart and so dread any mixing of +their blood with that of the infidel Turk or the unbelieving Jew that, +in order to avoid the risk of an unwelcome proposal, they make a +practise of betrothing their children before they are born. It strikes +me, however, that there must on occasion be a certain amount of +embarrasment connected with these early matches, as, for example, when +the prenatally engaged ones prove to be of the same sex. + +I used to be of the opinion that Tiflis, in the Caucasus, was the most +cosmopolitan city that I had ever seen, but since the war I think that +the greatest variety of races could probably be found in Salonika. Sit +at a marble-topped table on the pavement in front of Floca's café at +the tea-hour and you can see representatives of half the races in the +world pass by--British officers in beautifully polished boots and +beautifully cut breeches, astride of beautifully groomed ponies; +Highlanders with their kilts covered by khaki aprons; raw-boned, +red-faced Australians in sun helmets and shorts; swaggering _chausseurs +d'Afrique_ in wonderful uniforms of sky-blue and scarlet which you will +find nowhere else outside a musical comedy; soldiers of the Foreign +Legion with the skirts of their long blue overcoats pinned back and with +mushroom-shaped helmets which are much too large for them; soldierly, +well set-up little Ghurkas in broad-brimmed hats and uniforms of olive +green, reminding one for all the world of fighting cocks; Sikhs in +yellow khaki (did you know, by the way, that _khaki_ is the Hindustani +word for dust?) with their long black beards neatly plaited and rolled +up under their chins; Epirotes wearing the starched and plaited skirts +called _fustanellas_, each of which requires from twenty to forty yards +of linen; Albanian tribal chiefs in jackets stiff with gold embroidery, +with enough weapons thrust in their gaudy sashes to decorate a +club-room; Cretan gendarmes wearing breeches which are so tight below +the knee and so enormously baggy in the seat that they can, and when +they are in Crete frequently do, use them in place of a basket for +carrying their poultry, eggs or other farm produce to market; coal-black +Senegalese, coffee-colored Moroccans and tan-colored Algerians, all +wearing the broad red cummerbunds and the high red tarbooshes which +distinguish France's African soldiery; Italian _bersaglieri_ with great +bunches of cocks' feathers hiding their steel helmets; Serbs in +ununiform uniforms of every conceivable color, material and pattern, +their only uniform article of equipment being their characteristic +high-crowned _képis_; Russians in flat caps and belted blouses, their +baggy trousers tucked into boots with ankles like accordions; officers +of Cossack cavalry, their tall and slender figures accentuated by their +long, tight-fitting coats and their high caps of lambskin; Bulgar +prisoners wearing the red-banked caps which they have borrowed from +their German allies and Austrian prisoners in worn and shabby uniforms +of grayish-blue; Greek soldiers bedecked like Christmas trees with +medals, badges, fourragéres and chevrons, in the hope, I suppose, that +their gaudiness would make up for their lack of prowess; Orthodox +priests with their long hair (for they never cut their hair or beards) +done up in Psyche knots; Hebrew rabbis wearing caps of velvet shaped +like those worn by bakers; Moslem muftis with their snowy turbans +encircled by green scarves as a sign that they had made the pilgrimage +to the Holy Places; Jewish merchants and money-changers in the same +black caps and greasy gabardines which their ancestors wore in the +Middle Ages; British, French, Italian and American bluejackets with +their caps cocked jauntily and the roll of the sea in their gait; +A.R.A., A.R.C., Y.M.C.A., K. of C. and A.C.R.N.E. workers in fancy +uniforms of every cut and color; Turkish sherbet-sellers with huge brass +urns, hung with tinkling bells to give notice of their approach, slung +upon their backs; ragged Macedonian bootblacks (bootblacking appeared to +be the national industry of Macedonia), and hordes of gipsy beggars, the +filthiest and most importunate I have ever seen. All day long this +motley, colorful crowd surges through the narrow streets, their voices, +speaking in a score of tongues, raising a din like that of Bedlam; the +smells of unwashed bodies, human perspiration, strong tobacco, rum, +hashish, whiskey, arrack, goat's cheese, garlic, cheap perfumery and +sweat-soaked leather combining in a stench which rises to high Heaven. + +On the streets one sees almost as many colored soldiers as white ones: +French native troops from Algeria, Morocco, Madagascar, Senegal and +China; British Indian soldiery from Bengal, the Northwest Provinces and +Nepaul. The Indian troops were superbly drilled and under the most iron +discipline, but the French native troops appeared to be getting out of +hand and were not to be depended upon. To a man they had announced that +they wanted to go home. They had been through four and a half years of +war, they are tired and homesick, and they are more than willing to let +the Balkan peoples settle their own quarrels. They were weary of +fighting in a quarrel of which they knew little and about which they +cared less; they longed for a sight of the wives and the children they +had left behind them in Fez or Touggourt or Timbuktu. Because they had +been kept on duty in Europe, while the French white troops were being +rapidly demobilized and returned to their homes, the Africans were +sullen and resentful. This smoldering resentment suddenly burst into +flame, a day or so before we reached Salonika, when a Senegalese +sergeant, whose request to be sent home had been refused, ran amuck, +barricaded himself in a stone outhouse with a plentiful supply of rifles +and ammunition, and succeeded in killing four officers and half-a-dozen +soldiers before his career was ended by a well-aimed hand grenade. A few +days later a British officer was shot and killed in the camp outside the +city by a Ghurka sentinel. This was not due to mutiny, however, but, on +the contrary, to over-strict obedience to orders, the sentry having been +instructed that he was to permit no one to cross his post without +challenging. The officer, who was fresh from England and had had no +experience with the discipline of Indian troops, ignored the order to +halt--and the next day there was a military funeral. + +Salonika is theoretically under Greek rule and there are pompous, +self-important little Greek policemen, perfect replicas of the British +M.P.'s in everything save physique and discipline, on duty at the street +crossings, but instead of regulating the enormous flow of traffic they +seem only to obstruct it. When the congestion becomes so great that it +threatens to hold up the unending stream of motor-lorries which rolls +through the city, day and night, between the great cantonments in the +outskirts and the port, a tall British military policeman suddenly +appears from nowhere, shoulders the Greek gendarme aside, and with a few +curt orders untangles the snarl into which the traffic has gotten itself +and sets it going again. + +Picturesque though Salonika undeniably is, with its splendid mosques, +its beautiful Byzantine churches, its Roman triumphal arches, and the +brooding bulk of Mount Olympus, which overshadows and makes trivial +everything else, yet the strongest impressions one carries away are +filth, corruption and misgovernment. These conditions are due in some +measure, no doubt, to the refusal of the European troops, with whom the +city is filled, to take orders from any save their own officers, but the +underlying reason is to be found in the indifference and gross +incompetence of the Greek authorities. The Greeks answer this by saying +that they have not had time to clean the city up and give it a decent +administration because they have owned it only eight years. All of the +European business quarter, including a mile of handsome buildings along +the waterfront, lies in ruins as a result of the great fire of 1917. +Though a system of new streets has been tentatively laid out across this +fire-swept area, no attempt has been made to rebuild the city, hundreds +of shopkeepers carrying on their businesses in shacks and booths erected +amid the blackened and tottering walls. All of the hotels worthy of the +name were destroyed in the fire, the two or three which escaped being +quite uninhabitable, at least for Europeans, because of the armies of +insects with which they are infested. I do not recall hearing any one +say a good word for Salonika. The pleasantest recollection which I +retain of the place is that of the steamer which took us away from +there. + +Before we could leave Salonika for Constantinople our passports had to +be viséd by the representatives of five nations. In fact, travel in the +Balkans since the war is just one damn visé after another. The Italians +stamped them because we had come from Albania, which is under Italian +protection. The Serbs put on their imprint because we had stopped for a +few days in Monastir. The Greeks affixed their stamp--and collected +handsomely for doing so--because, theoretically at least, Salonika, +whose dust we were shaking from our feet, belongs to them. The French +insisted on viséing our papers in order to show their authority and +because they needed the ten francs. The British control officer told me +that I really didn't need his visé, but that he would put it on anyway +because it would make the passports look more imposing. Because we were +going to Constantinople and Bucharest, whereas our passports were made +out for "the Balkan States," the American Consul would not visé them at +all, on the ground that neither Turkey nor Roumania is in the Balkans. +About Roumania he was technically correct, but I think most geographers +place European Turkey in the Balkans. As things turned out, however, it +was all labor lost and time thrown away, for we landed in Constantinople +as untroubled by officials and inspectors as though we were stepping +ashore at Twenty-third Street from a Jersey City ferry. + +There were no regular sailings from Salonika for Constantinople, but, +by paying a hundred dollars for a ticket which in pre-war days cost +twenty, we succeeded in obtaining passage on an Italian tramp steamer. +The _Padova_ was just such a cargo tub as one might expect to find +plying between Levantine ports. Though we occupied an officer's cabin, +for which we were charged _Mauretania_ rates, it was very far from being +as luxurious as it sounds, for I slept upon a mattress laid upon three +chairs and the mattress was soiled and inhabited. Still, it was very +diverting, after an itching night, to watch the cockroaches, which were +almost as large as mice, hurrying about their duties on the floor and +ceiling. Huddled under the forward awnings were two-score deck +passengers--Greeks, Turks, Armenians and Roumanians. Sprawled on their +straw-filled mattresses, they loafed the hot and lazy days away in +playing cards, eating the black bread, olives and garlic which they had +brought with them, smoking a peculiarly strong and villainous tobacco, +and torturing native musical instruments of various kinds. At night a +young Turk sang plaintive, quavering laments to the accompaniment of a +sort of guitar, some of the others occasionally joining in the mournful +chorus. I found my chief recreation, when it grew too dark to read, in +watching an Orthodox priest, who was one of the deck-passengers, prepare +for the night by combing and putting up his long and greasy hair. +Another of the deck-passengers was a rather prosperous-looking, +middle-aged Levantine who had been in America making his fortune, he +told me, and was now returning to his wife, who lived in a little +village on the Dardanelles, after an absence of sixteen years. She had +no idea that he was coming, he said, as he had planned to surprise her. +Perhaps he was the one to be surprised. Sixteen years is a long time for +a woman to wait for a man, even in a country as conservative as Turkey. + +The officers of the _Padova_ talked a good deal about the mine-fields +that still guarded the approaches to the Dardanelles and the possibility +that some of the deadly contrivances might have broken loose and drifted +across our course. In order to cheer us up the captain showed us the +charts, on which the mined areas were indicated by diagonal shadings, +little red arrows pointing the way between them along channels as +narrow and devious as a forest trail. To add to our sense of security he +told us that he had never been through the Dardanelles before, adding +that he did not intend to pick up a pilot, as he considered their +charges exorbitant. At the base of the great mine-field which lies +across the mouth of the Straits we were hailed by a British patrol boat, +whose choleric commander bellowed instructions at us, interlarded with +much profanity, through a megaphone. The captain of the _Padova_ could +understand a few simple English phrases, if slowly spoken, but the +broadside of Billingsgate only confused and puzzled him, so, despite the +fact that he had no pilot and that darkness was rapidly descending, he +kept serenely on his course. This seemed to enrage the British skipper, +who threw over his wheel and ran directly across our bows, very much as +one polo player tries to ride off another. + +"You ---- fool!" he bellowed, fairly dancing about his quarter-deck with +rage. "Why in hell don't you stop when I tell you to? Don't you know +that you're running straight into a mine-field? Drop anchor alongside me +and do it ---- quick or I'll take your ---- license away from you. And +I don't want any of your ---- excuses, either. I won't listen to 'em." + +"What he say?" the captain asked me. "I not onderstan' hees Engleesh +ver' good." + +"No, you wouldn't," I told him. "He's speaking a sort of patois, you +see. He wants to know if you will have the great kindness to drop anchor +alongside him until morning, for it is forbidden to pass through the +mine-fields in the dark, and he hopes that you will have a very pleasant +night." + +Five minutes later our anchor had rumbled down off Sed-ul-Bahr, under +the shadow of Cape Helles, the tip of that rock, sun-scorched, +blood-soaked peninsula which was the scene of that most heroic of +military failures--the Gallipoli campaign. Above us, on the bare brown +hillside, was what looked, in the rapidly deepening twilight, like a +patch of driven snow, but upon examining it through my glasses I saw +that it was a field enclosed by a rude wall and planted thickly with +small white wooden crosses, standing row on row. Then I remembered. It +was at the foot of these steep and steel-swept bluffs that the Anzacs +made their immortal landing; it is here, in earth soaked with their own +blood, that they lie sleeping. The crowded dugouts in which they dwelt +have already fallen in; the trenches which they dug and which they held +to the death have crumbled into furrows; their bones lie among the rocks +and bushes at the foot of that dark and ominous hill on whose slopes +they made their supreme sacrifice. Leaning on the rail of the deserted +bridge in the darkness and the silence it seemed as though I could see +their ghosts standing amid the crosses on the hillside staring longingly +across the world toward that sun-baked Karroo of Australia and to the +blue New Zealand mountains which they called "Home." It was a night +never to be forgotten, for the glassy surface of the Ægean glowed with +phosphorescence, the sky was like a hanging of purple velvet, and the +peak of our foremast seemed almost to graze the stars. Across the +Hellespont, to the southward, the sky was illumined by a ruddy glow--a +village burning, so a sailor told me, on the site of ancient Troy. And +then there came back to me those lines from Agamemnon which I had +learned as a boy: + + _"Beside the ruins of Troy they lie buried, those men so beautiful; + there they have their burial-place, hidden in an enemy's land!"_ + +We got under way at daybreak and, picking our way as cautiously as a +small boy who is trying to get out of the house at night without +awakening his family, we crept warily through the vast mine-field which +was laid across the entrance to the Dardanelles, past Sed-ul-Bahr, whose +sandy beach is littered with the rusting skeletons of both Allied and +Turkish warships and transports; past Kalid Bahr, where the high bluffs +are dotted with the ruins of Turkish forts destroyed by the shell-fire +of the British dreadnaughts on the other side of the peninsula and with +the remains of other forts which were destroyed in the Crusaders' times; +past Chanak, where the steep hill-slopes behind the town were white with +British tents, and so into the safe waters of the Marmora Sea. Though I +was perfectly familiar with the topography of the Gallipoli Peninsula, +as well as with the possibilities of modern naval guns, I was astonished +at the evidences, which we saw along the shore for miles, of the +extraordinary accuracy of the fire of the British fleet. Virtually all +the forts defending the Dardanelles were bombarded by indirect fire, +remember, the whole width of the peninsula separating them from the +fleet. To get a mental picture of the situation you must imagine +warships lying in the East River firing over Manhattan Island in an +attempt to reduce fortifications on the Hudson. Men who were in the +Gallipoli forts during the bombardment told me that, though they were +prevented by the rocky ridge which forms the spine of the peninsula from +seeing the British warships, and though, for the same reason, the +gunners on the ships could not see the forts, the great steel +calling-cards of the British Empire came falling out of nowhere as +regularly and with as deadly precision as though they were being fired +at point-blank range. + +The successful defense of the Dardanelles, one of the most brilliantly +conducted defensive operations of the entire war, was primarily due to +the courage and stubborn endurance of Turkey's Anatolian soldiery, +ignorant, stolid, hardy, fearless peasants, who were taken straight from +their farms in Asia Minor, put into wretchedly made, ill-fitting +uniforms, hastily trained by German drillmasters, set down in the +trenches on the Gallipoli ridge and told to hold them. No one who is +familiar with the conditions under which these Turkish soldiers fought, +who knows how wretched were the conditions under which they lived, who +has seen those waterless, sun-seared ridges which they held against the +might of Britain's navy and the best troops which the Allies could bring +against them, can withhold from them his admiration. Their valor was +deserving of a better cause. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +WILL THE SICK MAN OF EUROPE RECOVER? + + +Each time that I have approached Constantinople from the Marmora Sea and +have watched that glorious and fascinating panorama--Seraglio Point, St. +Sophia, Stamboul, the Golden Horn, the Galata Bridge, the heights of +Pera, Dolmabagtche, Yildiz--slowly unfold, revealing new beauties, new +mysteries, with each revolution of the steamer's screw, I have declared +that in all the world there is no city so lovely as this capital of the +Caliphs. Yet, beautiful though Constantinople is, it combines the moral +squalor of Southern Europe with the physical squalor of the Orient to a +greater degree than any city in the Levant. Though it has assumed the +outward appearance of a well-organized and fairly well administered +municipality since its occupation by the Allies, one has but to scratch +this thin veneer to discover that the filth and vice and corruption and +misgovernment which characterized it under Ottoman rule still remain. +Barring a few municipal improvements which were made in the European +quarter of Pera and in the fashionable residential districts between +Dolmabagtche and Yildiz, the Turkish capital has scarcely a bowing +acquaintance with modern sanitation, the windows of some of the finest +residences in Stamboul looking out on open sewers down which refuse of +every description floats slowly to the sea or takes lodgment on the +banks, these masses of decaying matter attracting great swarms of +pestilence-breeding flies. The streets are thronged with women whose +virtue is as easy as an old shoe, attracted by the presence of the +armies as vultures are attracted by the smell of carrion. Saloons, +brothels, dives and gambling hells run wide open and virtually +unrestricted, and as a consequence venereal diseases abound, though the +British military authorities, in order to protect their own men, have +put the more notorious resorts "out of bounds" and, in order to provide +more wholesome recreations for the troops, have opened amusement parks +called "military gardens." In spite of the British, French, Italian and +Turkish military police who are on duty in the streets, stabbing +affrays, shootings and robberies are so common that they provoke but +little comment. Petty thievery is universal. Hats, coats, canes, +umbrellas disappear from beside one's chair in hotels and restaurants. +The Pera Palace Hotel has notices posted in its corridors warning the +guests that it is no longer safe to place their shoes outside their +doors to be polished. The streets, always wretchedly paved, have been +ground to pieces by the unending procession of motor-lorries, and, as +they are never by any chance repaired, the first rain transforms them +into a series of hog-wallows. The most populous districts of Pera, of +Galata, and of Stamboul are now disfigured by great areas of +fire-blackened ruins--reminders of the several terrible conflagrations +from which the Turkish capital has suffered in recent years. "Should the +United States decide to accept the mandate for Constantinople," a +resident remarked to me, "these burned districts would give her an +opportunity to start rebuilding the city on modern sanitary lines" and, +he might have added, at American expense. + +The prices of necessities are fantastic and of luxuries fabulous. The +cost of everything has advanced from 200 to 1,200 per cent. The price of +a meal is no longer reckoned in piastres but in Turkish pounds, though +this is not as startling as it sounds, for the Turkish _lira_ has +dropped to about a quarter of its normal value. Quite a modest dinner +for two at such places as Tokatlian's, the Pera Palace Hotel, or the +Pera Gardens, costs the equivalent of from fifteen to twenty dollars. +Everything else is in proportion. From the "Little Club" in Pera to the +Galata Bridge is about a seven minutes' drive by carriage. In the old +days the standard tariff for the trip was twenty-five cents. Now the +cabmen refuse to turn a wheel for less than two dollars. + +Speaking of money, the chief occupation of the traveler in the Balkans +is exchanging the currency of one country for that of another: lira into +dinars, dinars into drachmæ, drachmæ into piastres, piastres into leva, +leva into lei, lei into roubles (though no one ever exchanges his money +for roubles if he can possibly help it), roubles into kronen, and kronen +into lire again. The idea is to leave each country with as little as +possible of that country's currency in your possession. It is like +playing that card game in which you are penalized for every heart you +have left in your hand. + +"But how is the Sick Man?" I hear you ask. + +He is doing very nicely, thank you. In fact, he appears to be steadily +improving. There was a time, shortly after the Armistice, when it seemed +certain that he would have to submit to an operation, which he probably +would not have survived, but the surgeons disagreed as to the method of +operating and now it looks as though he would get well in spite of them. +He has a chill every time they hold a consultation, of course, but he +will probably escape the operation altogether, though he may have to +take some extremely unpleasant medicine and be kept on a diet for +several years to come. He has remarkable recuperative powers, you know, +and his friends expect to see him up and about before long. + +That may sound flippant, as it is, but it sums up in a single paragraph +the extraordinary political situation which exists in Turkey to-day. +Little more than a year ago Turkey surrendered in defeat, her resources +exhausted, her armies destroyed or scattered. If anything in the world +seemed certain at that time it was that the redhanded nation, whose very +name has for centuries been a synonym for cruelty and oppression, would +disappear from the map of Europe, if not from the map of the world, at +the behest of an outraged civilization. The Turkish Government committed +the most outrageous crime of the entire war when it organized the +systematic extermination of the Armenians. Its former Minister of War, +Enver Pasha, has been quoted as cynically remarking, "If there are no +more Armenians there can be no Armenian question." A people capable of +such barbarity ought no longer be permitted to sully Europe with their +presence: they ought to be driven back into those savage Anatolian +regions whence they came and kept there, just as those suffering from a +less objectionable form of leprosy are confined on Molokai. But the +fervor of a year ago for expelling the Turks from Europe is rapidly +dying down. In the spring of 1919 Turkey could have been partitioned by +the Allies with comparatively little friction. No one expected it more +than Turkey herself. Whenever she heard a step on the floor, a knock at +the door, she keyed herself for the ordeal of the anesthetic and the +operating table. But the ancient jealousies and rivalries of the Entente +nations, which had been forgotten during the war, returned with peace +and now it looks as though, as a result of these nations' distrust and +suspicion of each other, the Turks would win back by diplomacy what they +lost in battle. How History repeats itself! The Turks have often been +unlucky in war and then had a return of luck at the peace table. It was +so after the Russo-Turkish War, when the Congress of Berlin tore up the +Treaty of San Stefano. It was so to a lesser extent after the Balkan +wars, when the interference of the European Concert enabled Turkey to +recover Adrianople and a portion of the Thracian territory which she had +lost to Bulgaria. And now it looks as though she were once again to +escape the punishment she so richly merits. If she does, then History +will chronicle few more shameful miscarriages of justice. + +If the people of the United States could know for a surety of the +avarice, the selfishness, the cynicism which have marked every step of +the negotiations relative to the settlement of the Near Eastern +Question, if they were aware of the chicanery and the deceit and the low +cunning practised by the European diplomatists, I am convinced that +there would be an irresistible demand that we withdraw instantly from +participation in the affairs of Southeastern Europe and of Western Asia. +Why not look the facts in the face? Why not admit that these affairs +are, after all, none of our concern, and that, by every one save the +Turks and the Armenians, our attempted dictation is resented. In the +language of the frontier, we have butted into a game in which we are not +wanted. It is no game for up-lifters or amateurs. England, France, Italy +and Greece are not in this game to bring order out of chaos but to +establish "spheres of influence." They are not thinking about +self-determination and the rights of little peoples and making the world +safe for Democracy; they are thinking in terms of future commercial and +territorial advantage. They are playing for the richest stakes in the +history of the world: for the control of the Bosphorus and the Bagdad +Railway--for whoever controls them controls the trade routes to India, +Persia, and the vast, untouched regions of Transcaspia; the commercial +domination of Western Asia, and the overlordship of that city which +stands at the crossroads of the Eastern World and its political capital +of Islam. + +In order better to appreciate the subtleties of the game which they are +playing, let us glance over the shoulders of the players, and get a +glimpse of their hands. Take England to begin with. Unless I am greatly +mistaken, England is not in favor of a complete dismemberment of Turkey +or the expulsion of the Sultan from Constantinople. This is a complete +_volte face_ from the sentiment in England immediately after the war, +but during the interim she has heard in no uncertain terms from her +100,000,000 Mohammedan subjects in India, who look on the Turkish Sultan +as the head of their religion and who would resent his humiliation as +deeply, and probably much more violently, than the Roman Catholics would +resent the humiliation of the Pope. British rule in India, as those who +are in touch with Oriental affairs know, is none too stable, and the +last thing in the world England wants to do is to arouse the hostility +of her Moslem subjects by affronting the head of their faith. England +will unquestionably retain control of Mesopotamia for the sake of the +oil wells at the head of the Persian Gulf, the control which it gives +her of the eastern section of the Bagdad Railway, and because of her +belief that scientific irrigation will once more transform the plains of +Babylonia into one of the greatest wheat-producing regions in the world. +She may, and probably will, keep her oft-repeated promises to the Jews +by erecting Palestine into a Hebrew kingdom under British protection, if +for no other reason than its value as a buffer state to protect Egypt. +She will also, I assume, continue to foster and support the policy of +Pan-Arabism, as expressed In the new Kingdom of the Hedjaz, not alone +for the reason that control of the Arabian peninsula gives her complete +command of the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf as well as a highroad from +Egypt to her new protectorate of Persia, but because she hopes, I +imagine, that her protege, the King of Hedjaz, as Sheriff of Mecca, will +eventually supplant the Sultan as the religious head of Islam. (It is +interesting to note, in passing, that, as a result of the protectorates +which she has proclaimed over Mesopotamia, Palestine, Arabia and Persia, +England has, as a direct result of the war, obtained control of new +territories in Asia alone having an area greater than that of all the +states east of the Mississippi put together, with a population of some +20,000,000.) Though England would unquestionably welcome the United +States accepting a mandate for Constantinople, which would ensure the +neutrality of the Bosphorus, and for Armenia, which, under American +protection, would form a stabilized buffer state on Mesopotamia's +northern border, I am convinced that, even if the United States refuses +such mandates, the British Government will oppose the serious +humiliation of the Sultan-Khalif, or the complete dismemberment of his +dominions. + +The latest French plan is to establish an independent Turkey from +Adrianople to the Taurus Mountains, lopping off Syria, which will become +a French protectorate, and Mesopotamia and Palestine, which will remain +under British control. + +Constantinople, according to the French view, must remain independent, +though doubtless the freedom of the Straits would be assured by some +form of international control. France is not particularly enthusiastic +about the establishment of an independent Armenia, for many French +politicians believe that the interests of the Armenians can be +safeguarded while permitting them to remain under the nominal suzerainty +of Turkey, but she will oppose no active objections to Armenian +independence. But there must be no crusade against the Turkish +Nationalists who are operating in Asia Minor and no pretext given for +Nationalist massacres of Greeks and Armenians. And the Sultan must +retain the Khalifate and his capital in Constantinople, for, according +to the French view, it is far better for the interests of France, who +has nearly 30,000,000 Moslem subjects of her own, to have an independent +head of Islam at Constantinople, where he would be to a certain extent +under French influence, than to have a British-controlled one at Mecca. +The truth of the matter is that France is desperately anxious to protect +her financial interests in Turkey, which are already enormous, and she +knows perfectly well that her commercial and financial ascendency on +the Bosphorus will suddenly wane if the Empire should be dismembered. +That is the real reason why she is cuddling up to the Sick Man. Being +perfectly aware that neither England nor Italy would consent to her +becoming the mandatary for Constantinople, she proposes to do the next +best thing and rule Turkey in the future, as in the past, through the +medium of her financial interests. Sophisticated men who have read the +remarkable tributes to Turkey which have been appearing in the French +press, and its palliation of her long list of crimes, have been aware +that something was afoot, but only those who have been on the inside of +recent events realize how enormous are the stakes, and how shrewd and +subtle a game France is playing. + +Strictly speaking, Italy is not one of the claimants to Constantinople. +Not that she does not want it, mind you, but because she knows that +there is about as much chance of her being awarded such a mandate as +there is of her obtaining French Savoy, which she likewise covets. Under +no conceivable conditions would France consent to the Bosphorus passing +under Italian control; according to French views, indeed, Italy is +already far too powerful in the Balkans. Recognizing the hopelessness of +attempting to overcome French opposition, Italy has confined her claims +to the great rich region of Cilicia, which roughly corresponds to the +Turkish vilayet of Adana, a rich and fertile region in southern Asia +Minor, with a coast line stretching from Adana to Alexandretta. Cilicia, +I might mention parenthetically, is usually included in the proposed +Armenian state, and Armenians have anticipated that Alexandretta would +be their port on the Mediterranean, but, while the peacemakers at Paris +have been discussing the question, Italy has been pouring her troops +into this region, having already occupied the hinterland as far back as +Konia. Italy's sole claim to this region is that she wants it and that +she is going to take it while the taking is good. There are, it is true, +a few Italians along the coast, there are some Italian banks, and +considerable Italian money has been invested in various local projects, +but the population is overwhelmingly Turkish. But, as the Italians point +out in defending this piece of land-grabbing, Article 22 of the Covenant +of the League of Nations expressly states that the wishes of people not +yet civilized need not be considered. + +Let us now consider the claims of Greece as a reversionary of the Sick +Man's estate. Considering their attitude during the early part of the +war (for it is no secret that General Sarrail's operations in Macedonia +were seriously hampered by his fear that Greece might attack him in the +rear) and the paucity of their losses in battle, the Greeks have done +reasonably well in the game of territory grabbing. Do you realize, I +wonder, the full extent of the Hellenic claims? Greece asks for (1) the +southern portion of Albania, known as North Epirus; (2) for the whole of +Bulgarian Thrace, thus completely barring Bulgaria from the Ægean; (3) +for the whole of European Turkey, including the Dardanelles and +Constantinople; (4) for the province of Trebizond, on the southern shore +of the Black Sea, the Greek inhabitants of which attempted to establish +the so-called Pontus Republic; (5) the great seaport of Smyrna, with its +400,000 inhabitants, and a considerable portion of the hinterland, which +she has already occupied; (6) the Dodecannessus Islands, of which the +largest is Rhodes, off the western coast of Asia Minor, which the +Italians occupied during the Turco-Italian War and which they have not +evacuated; (7) the cession of Cyprus by England, which has administered +it since 1878. Greece's modest demands might be summed up in the words +of a song which was popular in the United States a dozen years ago and +which might appropriately be adopted by the Greeks as their national +anthem: + + "All I want is fifty million dollars, + A champagne fountain flowing at my feet; + J. Pierpont Morgan waiting at the table, + And Sousa's band a-playing while I eat." + +I will be quite candid in saying that I have small sympathy for Greece's +claims to these territories, not because she is not entitled to them on +the ground of nationality--for there is no denying that, in all of the +regions in question, save only Albania and Thrace, Greeks form a +majority of the Christian inhabitants--but because she is not herself +sufficiently advanced to be entrusted with authority over other races, +particularly over Mohammedans. The atrocities committed by Greek troops +on the Moslems of Albania and of Smyrna, to say nothing of the behavior +of the Greek bands in Macedonia during the Balkan wars, should be +sufficient proof of her unfitness to govern an alien race. I have +already spoken in some detail of the reported Greek outrages in Albania. +But this was not an isolated instance of the methods employed in +"Hellenizing" Moslem populations. In the spring of 1919 the Peace +Conference, hypnotized, apparently, by M. Venizelos, who is one of the +ablest diplomats of the day, made the mistake of permitting Greek +forces, unaccompanied by other troops, to land at Smyrna. Almost +immediately there began an indiscriminate slaughter of Turkish officials +and civilians, in retaliation, so the Greeks assert, for the massacre of +Greeks by Turks in the outlying districts. The obvious answer to this is +that, while the Greeks claim that they are a civilized race, they assert +that the Turks are not. The outcry against the Greeks on this occasion +was so great that an inter-allied commission, including American +representatives, was appointed to make a thorough investigation. This +commission unanimously found the Greeks guilty of the unprovoked +massacre of 800 Turkish men, women and children, who were shot down in +cold blood while being marched along the Smyrna waterfront, those who +were not killed instantly being thrown by Greek soldiers into the sea. +High handed and outrageous conduct by Greek troops in the towns and +villages back of Smyrna was also proved. I do not require any further +testimony as to the unwisdom of placing Mohammedans under Greek control, +but, if I did, I have the evidence of Mr. Hamlin, the son of the founder +of Roberts College, who was born in the Levant, who speaks both Turkish +and Greek, and who was sent to Smyrna by the Greek government as an +investigator and adviser. He told me that the Greek attitude toward the +Moslems was highly provocative and overbearing and that the Allies were +guilty of criminal negligence when they permitted the Greeks to land at +Smyrna alone. + +Though they know that their dream of restoring Hellenic rule over +Byzantium cannot be realized, the Greeks are bitterly opposed to the +United States receiving a mandate for Constantinople. The extent of +Greek hostility toward the United States is not appreciated in America, +yet I found traces of it everywhere in the Levant. A widespread Greek +propaganda has laid the responsibility for Greece's failure to get the +whole of Thrace at the door of the United States. To this accusation has +been added the charge that Americans were foremost in creating sentiment +against the Greek massacres in Smyrna, which, the Greeks contend, was +merely an unfortunate incident and should be overlooked. All sorts of +extraordinary reasons are advanced for America's alleged hostility to +Greek claims, ranging from the charge that our attitude is inspired by +the missionaries (for the Orthodox Church has always opposed the +presence of American missionaries in Greek lands) to commercial +ambition. As one leading Greek paper put it, "Alongside of America's +greed and schemes for commercial expansion since the war, Germany's +imperialism was pure idealism." + +[Illustration: YILDIZ KIOSK, THE FAVORITE PALACE OF ABDUL-HAMID AND HIS +SUCCESSORS ON THE THRONE OF OSMAN + +The building in the foreground, known as the Ambassador's Pavilion, is +only a small portion of the great Palace which in Abdul-Hamid's time +housed upward of 10,000 persons] + +And now a few words as to the attitude of Turkey herself, for she has, +after all, a certain interest in the matter. The Turks are perfectly +resigned to accepting either America, England or France as mandatary, +though they would much prefer America, provided that European Turkey, +Anatolia and Armenia are kept together, for they realize that Syria, +Mesopotamia and Arabia, whose populations are overwhelmingly Arab, are +lost to them forever. What they would most eagerly welcome would be an +American mandate for European Turkey and the whole of Asia Minor, +including Armenia. This would keep out the Greeks, whom they hate, and +the Italians, whom they distrust, and it would keep intact the most +valuable portion of the Empire and the part for which they have the +deepest sentimental attachment. Most Turks believe that, with America as +the mandatary power, the country would not only benefit enormously +through the railways, roads, harbor works, agricultural projects, +sanitary improvements and financial reforms which would be carried out +at American expense, as in the Philippines, but that, should the Turks +behave themselves and demonstrate an ability for self-government, +America would eventually restore their complete independence, as she has +promised to restore that of the Filipinos. But if they find that +Constantinople and Armenia are to be taken away from them, then I +imagine that they would vigorously oppose any mandatary whatsoever. And +they could make a far more effective opposition than is generally +believed, for, though Constantinople is admittedly at the mercy of the +Allied fleet in the Bosphorus, the Nationalist are said to have +recruited a force numbering nearly 300,000 men, composed of well-trained +and moderately well equipped veterans of the Gallipoli campaign, which +is concentrated in the almost inaccessible regions of Central Anatolia. +Moreover, Enver Pasha, the former Minister of War and leader of the +Young Turk party, who, it is reported, has made himself King of +Kurdistan, is said to be in command of a considerable force of Turks, +Kurds and Georgians which he has raised for the avowed purpose of ending +the troublesome Armenian question by exterminating what is left of the +Armenians, and by effecting a union of the Turks, the Kurds, the +Mohammedans of the Caucasus, the Persians, the Tartars and the Turkomans +into a vast Turanian Empire, which would stretch from the shores of the +Mediterranean to the borders of China. Though the realization of such a +scheme is exceedingly improbable, it is by no means as far-fetched or +chimerical as it sounds, for Enver is bold, shrewd, highly intelligent +and utterly unscrupulous and to weld the various races of his proposed +empire he is utilizing an enormously effective agency--the fanatical +faith of all Moslems in the future of Islam. Neither England nor France +have any desire to stir up this hornet's nest, which would probably +result in grave disorders among their own Moslem subjects and which +would almost certainly precipitate widespread massacres of the +Christians in Asia Minor, for the sake of dismembering Turkey and +ousting the Sultan. + +I have tried to make it clear that there is nothing which the Turks so +urgently desire as for the United States to take a mandate for the whole +of Turkey. Those who are in touch with public opinion in this country +realize, of course, that the people of the United States would never +approve of, and that Congress would never give its assent to such an +adventure, yet there are a considerable number of well-informed, able +and conscientious men--former Ambassador Henry Morgenthau and President +Henry King of Oberlin, for example--who give it their enthusiastic +support. And they are backed up by a host of missionaries, commercial +representatives, concessionaires and special commissioners of one sort +and another. When I was in Constantinople the European colony in that +city was watching with interest and amusement the maneuvers of the Turks +to bring the American officials around to accepting this view of the +matter. They "rushed" the rear admiral who was acting as American High +Commissioner and his wife as the members of a college fraternity "rush" +a desirable freshman. And, come to think of it, most of the American +officials who were sent out to investigate and report on conditions in +Turkey are freshmen when it comes to the complexities of Near Eastern +affairs. This does not apply, of course, to such men as Consul-General +Ravndal at Constantinople, Consul-General Horton at Smyrna, Dr. Howard +Bliss, President of the Syrian Protestant College at Beirut, and certain +others, who have lived in the Levant for many years and are intimately +familiar with the intricacies of its politics and the characters of its +peoples. But it does apply to those officials who, after hasty and +personally conducted tours through Asiatic Turkey, or a few months' +residence in the Turkish capital, are accepted as "experts" by the Peace +Conference and by the Government at Washington. When I listen to their +dogmatic opinions on subjects of which most of them were in abysmal +ignorance prior to the Armistice, I am always reminded of a remark once +made to me by Sir Edwin Pears, the celebrated historian and authority on +Turkish affairs. "I don't pretend to understand the Turkish character," +Sir Edwin remarked dryly, "but, you see, I have lived here only forty +years." + +It is an interesting and altruistic scheme, this proposed regeneration +at American expense of a corrupt and decadent empire, but in their +enthusiasm its supporters seem to have overlooked several obvious +objections. In the first place, though both England and France are +perfectly willing to have the United States accept a mandate for +European Turkey, Armenia and even Anatolia, I doubt if England would +welcome with enthusiasm a proposal that she should evacuate Palestine +and Mesopotamia, the conquest of which has cost her so much in blood and +gold, or whether France would consent to renounce her claims to Syria, +of which she has always considered herself the legatee. As for Italy and +Greece, I imagine that it would prove as difficult to oust the one from +Adalia and the other from Smyrna as it has been to oust the Poet from +Fiume. Secondly, such a mandate would mean the end of Armenia's dream of +independence, for, though she might be given a certain measure of +autonomy, and though she would, of course, no longer be exposed to +Turkish massacres, she would enjoy about as much real independence under +such an arrangement as the native states of India enjoy under the +British Raj. Lastly, nothing is further from our intention, if I know +the temper of my countrymen, than to assume any responsibility in order +to resurrect the Turk, nor are we interested in preserving the integrity +of Turkey in any guise, shape or form. Instead of perpetuating the +unspeakable rule of the Osmanli, we should assist in ending it forever. + +And now we come to the question of accepting a mandate for Armenia. In +order to get a mental picture of this foundling which we are asked to +rear you must imagine a country about the size of North Dakota, with +Dakota's cold winters and scorching summers, consisting of a dreary, +monotonous, mile-high plateau with grass-covered, treeless mountains +and watered by many rivers, whose valleys form wide strips of arable +land. Rising above the general level of this Armenian tableland are +barren and forbidding ranges, broken by many gloomy gorges, which +culminate, on the extreme northeast, in the mighty peak of Ararat, the +traditional resting-place of the Ark. Armenia is completely hemmed in by +alien and potentially hostile races. On the northeast are the wild +tribes of the Caucasus; on the east are the Persians, who, though not +hostile to Armenian aspirations, are of the faith of Islam; along +Armenia's southern border are the Kurds, a race as savage, as cruel and +as relentless as were the Apaches of our own West; on the east is +Anatolia, with its overwhelmingly Ottoman population. Before the war the +Armenians in the six Turkish vilayets--Trebizond, Erzeroum, Van, Bitlis, +Mamuret-el-Aziz and Diarbekir--numbered perhaps 2,000,000, as compared +with about 700,000 Turks. But there is no saying how many Armenians +remain, for during the past five years the Turks have perpetrated a +series of wholesale massacres in order to be able to tell the Christian +Powers, as a Turkish official cynically remarked, that "one cannot make +a state without inhabitants." + +As just and accurate an estimate of the Armenian character as any I have +read is that written by Sir Charles William Wilson, perhaps the foremost +authority on the subject, for the Encyclopædia Britannica: "The +Armenians are essentially an Oriental people, possessing, like the Jews, +whom they resemble in their exclusiveness and widespread dispersion, a +remarkable tenacity of race and faculty of adaptation to circumstances. +They are frugal, sober, industrious and intelligent and their sturdiness +of character has enabled them to preserve their nationality and religion +under the sorest trials. They are strongly attached to old manners and +customs but have also a real desire for progress which is full of +promise. On the other hand they are greedy of gain, quarrelsome in small +matters, self-seeking and wanting in stability; and they are gifted with +a tendency to exaggeration and a love of intrigue which has had an +unfortunate effect on their history. They are deeply separated by +religious differences and their mutual jealousies, their inordinate +vanity, their versatility and their cosmopolitan character must always +be an obstacle to a realization of the dreams of the nationalists. The +want of courage and selfreliance, the deficiency in truth and honesty +sometimes noticed in connection with them, are doubtless due to long +servitude under an unsympathetic government." + +It seems to me that it is time to subordinate sentiment to common sense +in discussing the question of Armenia. I have known many Armenians and I +have the deepest sympathy for the woes of that tragic race, but if the +Armenians are in danger of extermination their fate is a matter for the +Allies as a whole, or for the League of Nations, if there ever is one, +but not for the United States alone. To administer and police Armenia +would probably require an army corps, or upwards of 50,000 men, and I +doubt if a force of such size could be raised for service in so remote +and inhospitable a region without great difficulty. My personal opinion +is that the Armenians, if given the necessary encouragement and +assistance, are capable of governing themselves. Certainly they could +not govern themselves more wretchedly than the Mexicans, yet there has +been no serious proposal that the United States should take a mandate +for Mexico. Everything considered, I am convinced that the highest +interests of Armenia, of America, and of civilization would be best +served by making Armenia an independent state, having much the same +relation to the United States as Cuba. Let us finance the Armenian +Republic by all means, let us lend it officers to organize its +gendarmerie and teachers for its schools, let us send it agricultural +and sanitary and building and financial experts, and let us give the +rest of the world, particularly the Turks, to understand that we will +tolerate no infringement of its sovereignly. Do that, set the Armenians +on their feet, safeguard them politically and financially, and then +leave them to work out their own salvation. + +Though prophesying is a dangerous business, and likely to lead to +embarrassment and chagrin for the prophet, I am willing to hazard a +guess that the future maps of what was once the Ottoman Dominions will +be laid out something after this fashion: Mesopotamia will be tinted +red, because it will be British. Palestine will also be under Britain's +ægis--a little independent Hebrew state, not much larger than Panama. +Under the word "Syria" will appear the inscription "French +Protectorate." The Adalia region will be designated "Italian Sphere of +Influence," while Smyrna and its immediate hinterland will probably be +labeled "Greek Sphere." Across the northeastern corner of Asia Minor +will be spread the words "Republic of Armenia" and beneath, in +parentheses, "Independence guaranteed by the United States." The whole +of Anatolia, save the Greek and Italian fringes just mentioned, will be +occupied and ruled by the Turks, for it is their ancestral home. The +fortifications along the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus will be leveled +and they, with Constantinople, will be under some form of international +control, with equal rights for all nations. But, unless I am very much +mistaken, the Turks will _not_ be driven out of Europe, as has so long +been predicted; the Ottoman Government will not retire to Brusa, in Asia +Minor, but will continue to function in Stamboul, and the Sultan, as the +religious head of Islam, will still dwell in the great white palace atop +of Yildiz hill. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +WHAT THE PEACE-MAKERS HAVE DONE ON THE DANUBE + + +When I called upon M. Bratianu, the Prime Minister of Rumania, who was +in Paris as a delegate to the Peace Conference, I opened the +conversation by innocently remarking that I proposed to spend some weeks +in his country during my travels in the Balkans. But I got no further, +for M. Bratianu, whose tremendous shoulders and bristling black beard +make him appear even larger than he is, sprang to his feet and brought +his fist crashing down upon the table. + +"You ought to know better than that, Major Powell," he angrily +exclaimed. "Rumania is not in the Balkans and never has been. We object +to being called a Balkan people." + +I apologized for my slip, of course, and amicable relations were +resumed, but I mention the incident as an illustration of how deeply +the Rumanians resent the inclusion of their country in that group of +turbulent kingdoms which compose what some one has aptly called the +Cockpit of Europe. The Rumanians are as sensitive in this respect as are +the haughty and aristocratic Creoles, inordinately proud of their French +or Spanish ancestry, when some ignorant Northerner remarks that he had +always supposed that Creoles were part negro. Not only is Rumania not +one of the Balkan states, geographically speaking, but the Rumanians' +idea of their country's importance has been enormously increased as a +result of its recent territorial acquisitions, which have made it the +sixth largest country in Europe, with an area very nearly equal to that +of Italy and with a population three-fourths that of Spain. You were not +aware, perhaps, that the width of Greater Rumania, from east to west, is +as great as the width of France from the English Channel to the +Mediterranean. One has to break into a run to keep pace with the march +of geography these days. + +Owing to the demoralization prevailing in Thrace and Bulgaria, railway +communications between Constantinople and the Rumanian frontier were so +disorganized that we decided to travel by steamer to Constantza, taking +the railway thence to Bucharest. Before the war the Royal Rumanian mail +steamer _Carol I_ was as trim and luxuriously fitted a vessel as one +could have found in Levantine waters. For more than a year, however, she +was in the hands of the Bolsheviks, so that when we boarded her her +sides were red with rust, her cabins had been stripped of everything +which could be carried away, and the straw-filled mattresses, each +covered with a dubious-looking blanket, were as full of unwelcome +occupants as the Black Sea was of floating mines. + +[Illustration: THE RED BADGE OF MERCY IN THE BALKANS + +American Red Cross women supplying food to a ship-load of starving +Russian refugees at Constantza, Rumania] + +Constantza, the chief port of Rumania, is superbly situated on a +headland overlooking the Black Sea. It has an excellent harbor, bordered +on one side by a number of large grain elevators and on the other by a +row of enormous petroleum tanks--the latter the property of an American +corporation; a mile or so of asphalted streets, several surprisingly +fine public buildings, and, on the beautifully terraced and landscaped +waterfront, an imposing but rather ornate casino and many luxurious +summer villas, most of which were badly damaged when the city was +bombarded by the Bulgars. Constantza is a favorite seaside resort for +Bucharest society and during the season its _plage_ is thronged with +summer visitors dressed in the height of the Paris fashion. From atop +his marble pedestal in the city's principal square a statue of the Roman +poet Ovid, who lived here in exile for many years, looks quizzically +down upon the light-hearted throng. + +It is in the neighborhood of 150 miles by railway from Constantza to +Bucharest and before the war the Orient Express used to make the journey +in less than four hours. Now it takes between twenty and thirty. We made +a record trip, for our train left Constantza at four o'clock in the +morning and pulled into Bucharest shortly before midnight. It is only +fair to explain, however, that the length of time consumed in the +journey was due to the fact that the bridge across the Danube near +Tchernavoda, which was blown up by the Bulgars, had not been repaired, +thus necessitating the transfer of the passengers and their luggage +across the river on flat-boats, a proceeding which required several +hours and was marked by the wildest confusion. So few trains are +running in the Balkans that there are never enough, or nearly enough, +seats to accommodate all the passengers, so that fully as many ride on +the roofs of the coaches as inside. This has the advantage, in the eyes +of the passengers, of making it impracticable for the conductor to +collect the fares, but it also has certain disadvantages. During our +trip from Constantza to Bucharest three roof passengers rolled off and +were killed. + +As a result of the lengthy occupation of the city by the Austro-Germans, +and their systematic removal of machinery and industrial material of +every description, everything is out of order in Bucharest. Water, +electric lights, gas, telephones, elevators, street-cars "_ne marche +pas_." Though we had a large and beautifully furnished room in the +Palace Hotel we had to climb three flights of stairs to reach it, the +light was furnished by candles, the water for the bathroom was brought +in buckets, and, as the Germans had removed the wires of the +house-telephones, we had to go into the hall and shout when we required +a servant. Yet the almost total lack of conveniences does not deter the +hotels from making the most exorbitant charges. Bucharest has always +been an expensive city but to-day the prices are fantastic. At Capsa's, +which is the most fashionable restaurant, it is difficult to get even a +modest lunch for two for less than twelve dollars. But, notwithstanding +the destruction of the nation's chief source of wealth, its oil wells, +by the Rumanians themselves, in order to prevent their use by the enemy, +and the systematic looting of the country by the invaders, there seems +to be no lack of money in Bucharest, for the restaurants are filled to +the doors nightly, there is a constant fusillade of champagne corks, and +in the various gardens, all of which have cabaret performances, the +popular dancers are showered with silver and notes. In fact, a customary +evening in Bucharest is not very far removed, in its gaiety and abandon, +from a New Year's Eve celebration in New York. Not even Paris can offer +a gayer night life than the Rumanian capital, for at the Jockey Club it +is no uncommon thing for 10,000 francs to change hands on the turn of a +card or a whirl of the roulette wheel; out the Chaussée Kisselew, at the +White City, the dance floor is crowded until daybreak with slender, +rather effeminate-looking officers in beautiful uniforms of green or +pale blue and superbly gowned and bejewelled women. Indeed, I doubt if +there is any city of its size in the world on whose streets one sees so +many _chic_ and beautiful women, though I might add that their jewels +are generally of a higher quality than their morals. As long as these +bewitching beauties behave themselves they are not molested by the +police, who seem to have an arrangement with the hotel managements +looking toward their control. When Mrs. Powell and I arrived at our +hotel the proprietor asked us for our passports, which, he explained, +must be viséd by the police. The following morning my passport was +returned alone. + +"But where is my wife's passport?" I demanded, for in Southern Europe in +these days it is impossible to travel even short distances without one's +papers. + +"But M'sieu must know that we always retain the lady's passport until he +leaves," said the proprietor, with a knowing smile. "Then, should she +disappear with M'sieu's watch, or his money, or his jewels, she will not +be able to leave the city and the police can quickly arrest her. Yes, +it is the custom here. A neat idea, _hein_?" + +Though I succeeded in obtaining the return of Mrs. Powell's passport I +am not at all certain that I succeeded in entirely convincing the +_hôtelier_ that she really was my wife. + +Rumania is at present passing through a period of transition. Not only +have the area and population of the country been more than doubled, but +the war has changed all other conditions and the new forms of national +life are still unsettled. In the summer of 1918 even the most optimistic +Rumanians doubted if the nation would emerge from the war with more than +a fraction of its former territory, yet to-day, as a result of the +acquisition of Transylvania, Bessarabia and the eastern half of the +Banat, the country's population has risen from seven to fourteen +millions and its area from 50,000 to more than 100,000 square miles. The +new conditions have brought new laws. Of these the most revolutionary is +the law which forbids landowners to retain more than 1,000 acres of +their land, the government taking over and paying for the residue, which +is given to the peasants to cultivate. As a result of this policy, +there have been practically no strikes or labor troubles in Rumania, +for, now that most of their demands have been conceded, the Rumanian +peasants seem willing to seek their welfare in work instead of +Bolshevism. Heretofore the Jews, though liable to military service, have +not been permitted a voice in the government of their country, but, as a +result of recent legislation, they have now been granted full civil +rights, though whether they will be permitted to exercise them is +another question. The Jews, who number upwards of a quarter of a +million, have a strangle hold on the finances of the country and they +must not be permitted, the Rumanians insist, to get a similar grip on +the nation's politics. It is only very recently, indeed, that Rumanian +Jews have been granted passports, which meant that only those rich +enough to obtain papers by bribery could enter or leave the country. The +Rumanians with whom I discussed the question said quite frankly that the +legislation granting suffrage to the Jews would probably be observed +very much as the Constitutional Amendment granting suffrage to the +negroes is observed in our own South. + +The truth of the matter is that Rumania is in the hands of a clique of +selfish and utterly unscrupulous politicians who have grown rich from +their systematic exploitation of the national resources. Every bank and +nearly every commercial enterprise of importance is in their hands. One +of the present ministers entered the cabinet a poor man; to-day he is +reputed to be worth twenty millions. Anything can be purchased in +Rumania--passports, exemption from military service, cabinet portfolios, +commercial concessions--if you have the money to pay for it. The fingers +of Rumanian officials are as sticky as those of the Turks. An officer of +the American Relief Administration told me that barely sixty per cent, +of the supplies sent from the United States for the relief of the +Rumanian peasantry ever reached those for whom they were intended; the +other forty per cent, was kept by various officials. To find a parallel +for the political corruption which exists throughout Rumania it is +necessary to go back to New York under the Tweed administration or to +Mexico under the Diaz régime. + +From a wealthy Hungarian landowner, with whom I traveled from Bucharest +to the frontier of Jugoslavia, I obtained a graphic idea of what can be +accomplished by money in Rumania. This young Hungarian, who had been +educated in England and spoke with a Cambridge accent, possessed large +estates in northeastern Hungary. After four years' service as an officer +of cavalry he was demobilized upon the signing of the Armistice. When +the revolution led by Bela Kun broke out in Budapest he escaped from +that city on foot, only to be arrested by the Rumanians as he was +crossing the Rumanian frontier. Fortunately for him, he had ample funds +in his possession, obtained from the sale of the cattle on his estate, +so that he was able to purchase his freedom after spending only three +days in jail. But his release did not materially improve his situation, +for he had no passport and, as Hungary was then under Bolshevist rule, +he was unable to obtain one. And he realized that without a passport it +would be impossible for him to join his wife and children, who were +awaiting him in Switzerland. As luck would have it, however, he was +slightly acquainted with the prefect of a small town in +Transylvania--for obvious reasons I shall not mention its name--which he +finally reached after great difficulty, traveling by night and lying +hidden by day so as to avoid being halted and questioned by the Rumanian +patrols. By paying the prefect 1,000 francs and giving him and his +friends a dinner at the local hotel, he obtained a certificate stating +that he was a citizen of the town and in good standing with the local +authorities. Armed with this document, which was sufficient to convince +inquisitive border officials of his Rumanian nationality, he took train +for Bucharest, where he spent five weeks dickering for a Rumanian +passport which would enable him to leave the country. Including the +bribes and entertainments which he gave to officials, and gifts of one +sort and another to minor functionaries, it cost him something over +25,000 francs to obtain a passport duly viséd for Switzerland. But my +friend's anxieties did not end there, for a Rumanian leaving the country +was not permitted to take more than 1,000 francs in currency with him, +those suspected of having in their possession funds in excess of this +amount being subjected to a careful search at the frontier. My friend +had with him, however, something over 500,000 francs, all that he had +been able to realize from his estates. How to get this sum out of the +country was a perplexing problem, but he finally solved it by concealing +the notes, which were of large denomination, in the bottom of a box of +expensive face powder, which, he explained to the officials at the +frontier, he was taking as a present to his wife. When the train drew +into the first Serbian station and he realized that he was beyond the +reach of pursuit, he capered up and down the platform like a small boy +when school closes for the long vacation. + +Considerable astonishment seems to have been manifested by the American +press and public at the disinclination of Rumania and Jugoslavia to sign +the treaty with Austria without reservations. Yet this should scarcely +occasion surprise, for the attitude of the great among the Allies toward +the smaller brethren who helped them along the road to victory has been +at times blameworthy, often inexplicable, and on frequent occasions +arrogant and tactless. At the outset of the Peace Conference some +endeavor was made to live up to the promises so loudly made that +henceforth the rights of the weak were to receive as much attention as +those of the strong. Commissions were formed to study various aspects of +the questions involved in the peace and upon these the representatives +of the smaller nations were given seats. But this did not last long. +Within a month Messrs. Wilson, Lloyd-George, Clémenceau and Orlando had +made themselves virtually the dictators of the Peace Conference, +deciding behind closed doors matters of vital moment to the national +welfare of the small states without so much as taking them into +consultation. Prime Minister Bratianu, who went to Paris as the head of +the Rumanian peace delegation, told me, his voice hoarse with +indignation, that the "Big Four," in settling Rumania's future +boundaries, had not only not consulted him but that he had not even been +informed of the terms decided upon. "They hand us a fountain pen and say +'Sign here,'" the Premier exclaimed, "and then they are surprised if we +refuse to affix our signatures to a document which vitally concerns our +national future but about which we have never been consulted." + +We Americans, of all peoples, should realize that a small nation is as +jealous of its independence as a large one. As a matter of fact, Rumania +and her sister-states of Southeastern Europe, who still bear the scars +of Turkish oppression, are super-sensitive in this respect, the fact +that they have so often been the victims of intriguing neighbors making +them more than ordinarily suspicious and resentful toward any action +which tends to limit their mastery of their own households. Hence they +regard that clause of the Treaty of St. Germain providing for the +protection of ethnical minorities with an indignation which cannot +easily be appreciated by the Western nations. The boundaries of the new +and aggrandized states of Southeastern Europe will necessarily include +alien minorities--this cannot be avoided--and the Peace Conference held +that the welfare of such minorities must be the special concern of the +League of Nations. Take the case of Rumania, for example. In order to +unite her people she must annex some compact masses of aliens which, in +certain cases at least, have been deliberately planted within +ethnological frontiers for a specific purpose. The settlements of +Magyars in Transylvania, who, under Hungarian rule, were permitted to +exploit their Rumanian neighbors without let or hindrance, will not +willingly surrender the privileges they have so long enjoyed and submit +to a régime of strict justice and equality. On the other hand, Rumania +can scarcely be expected to agree to an arrangement which would not only +impair her sovereignty but would almost certainly encourage intrigue and +unrest among these alien minorities. How would the United States regard +a proposal to submit its administration of the Philippines to +international control? How would England like the League of Nations to +take a hand in the government of Ireland? That, briefly stated, is the +reason why both Rumania and Jugoslavia objected so strongly to the +inclusion of the so-called racial minorities clause in the Treaty of St. +Germain. Looking at the other side of the question, it Is easy to +understand the solicitude which the treaty-makers at Paris displayed for +the thousands of Magyars, Serbs and Bulgars who, without so much as a +by-your-leave, they have placed under Rumanian rule. No less authority +than Viscount Bryce has made the assertion that in Transylvania alone +(which, by the way, has an area considerably greater than all our New +England states put together), which has been taken over by Rumania, +fully a third of the population has no affinity with the Rumanians. +Similarly, there are whole towns in the Dobrudja which are composed of +Bulgarians, there are large groups of Russian Slavs in Bessarabia, and +considerable colonies of Jugoslavs in the eastern half of the Banat +which, very much against their wishes, have been forced to submit to +Rumanian rule. Whether, now that the tables are turned, the Rumanians +will put aside their ancient animosities and prejudices and give these +new and unwilling citizens every privilege which they themselves enjoy, +is a question which only the future can solve. + +Another question, which has agitated Rumania even more violently than +that of the racial minorities clause, was the demand made by the Great +Powers that the Rumanian army be withdrawn from Hungary and that the +livestock and agricultural implements of which that unhappy country was +stripped by the Rumanian forces be immediately returned. Here is the +Rumanian version: Hungary went Bolshevist and assumed a hostile +attitude toward Rumania, Czechoslovakia and Jugoslavia, the three +countries which will benefit by her dismemberment according to the +principle of nationality. Hungary attacked these countries by arms and +by anarchistic propaganda. The Rumanians, the Czechoslovaks and the +Jugoslavs, wishing to defend themselves, asked permission of the Supreme +Council to deal drastically with the Hungarian menace. The reply, which +was late in coming, was couched in vague and unsatisfactory language. +Emboldened by the vacillatory attitude of the Powers, the Hungarians +began a military offensive, invading Czechoslovakia and crossing the +lines of the Armistice in Rumania and Jugoslavia. In order to prevent a +spread of this Bolshevist movement the three countries prepared to +occupy Hungary with troops, whereupon a command came from the Supreme +Council in Paris that such aggression would not be tolerated. This +encouraged Bela Kun, the Hungarian Trotzky, and made him so popular that +he succeeded in raising a Red army with which he crossed the River +Theiss and invaded Rumania. Whereupon the Rumanian army, being unable to +obtain support from the Supreme Council, pushed back the Hungarians, +occupied Budapest, overthrew Bela Kun's administration and restored +order in Hungary. But the Supreme Council, feeling that its authority +had been ignored by the little country, sent several messages to the +Rumanian Government peremptorily ordering it to withdraw its troops +immediately from Hungary. Here endeth the Rumanian version. + +Now the real reason which actuated the Supreme Council was not that it +felt that its authority had been slighted, but because it was informed +by its representatives in Hungary that the Rumanians had not stopped +with ousting Bela Kun and suppressing Bolshevism, but were engaged in +systematically looting the country, driving off thousands of head of +livestock, and carrying away all the machinery, rolling stock, telephone +and telegraph wires and instruments and metalwork they could lay their +hands on, thereby completely crippling the industries of Hungary and +depriving great numbers of people of employment. The Rumanians retorted +that the Austro-German armies had systematically looted Rumania during +their three years of occupation and that they were only taking back +what belonged to them. The Hungarians, while admitting that Rumania had +been pretty thoroughly stripped of animals and machinery by von +Mackensen's armies, asserted that this loot had not remained in Hungary +but had been taken to Germany, which was probably true. The Supreme +Council took the position that the animals and material which the +Rumanians were rushing out of Hungary in train-loads was not the sole +property of Rumania, but that it was the property of all the Allies, and +that the Supreme Council would apportion it among them in its own good +time. The Council pointed out, furthermore, that if the Rumanians +succeeded in wrecking Hungary industrially, as they were evidently +trying to do, it would be manifestly impossible for the Hungarians to +pay any war indemnity whatsoever. And finally, that a bankrupt and +starving Hungary meant a Bolshevist Hungary and that there was already +enough trouble of that sort in Eastern Europe without adding to it. The +Rumanians proving deaf to these arguments, the Supreme Council sent +three messages, one after the other, to the Bucharest government, +ordering the immediate withdrawal from Hungarian soil of the Rumanian +troops. Yet the Rumanian troops remained in Budapest and the looting of +Hungary continued, the Rumanian government declaring that the messages +had never been received. Meanwhile every one in the kingdom, from +Premier to peasant, was laughing in his sleeve at the helplessness of +the Supreme Council. But they laughed too soon. For the Supreme Council +wired to the Food Administrator, Herbert Hoover, who was in Vienna, +informing him of the facts of the situation, whereupon Mr. Hoover, who +has a blunt and uncomfortably direct way of achieving his ends, sent a +curt message to the Rumanian government informing it that, if the orders +of the Supreme Council were not immediately obeyed, he would shut off +its supplies of food. _That_ message produced action. The troops were +withdrawn. I can recall no more striking example of the amazing changes +brought about in Europe by the Great War than the picture of this +boyish-faced Californian mining engineer coolly giving orders to a +European government, and having those orders promptly obeyed, after the +commands of the Great Powers had been met with refusal and derision. To +take a slight liberty with the lines of Mr. Kipling-- + + _"The Kings must come down and the Emperors frown + When Herbert Hoover says 'Stop!'"_ + +Up to that time the United States had been immensely popular in Rumania. +But Mr. Hoover's action made us about as popular with the Rumanians as +the smallpox. He and we were charged with being actuated by the most +despicable and sordid motives. The King himself told me that he was +convinced that Mr. Hoover was in league with certain great commercial +interests which wished to take their revenge for their failure to obtain +commercial concessions of great value in Rumania. A cabinet minister, in +discussing the incident with me, became so inarticulate with rage that +he could scarcely talk at all. + +But the United States is not the only country which has lost the +confidence of the Rumanians. France is even more deeply distrusted and +disliked than we are. And this in spite of the fact that the upper +classes of Rumania have held up the French as their ideal for the past +fifty years. Indeed, wealthy Rumanians live in a fashion more French +than if they dwelt in Paris itself. This sudden unpopularity of the +French is due to several causes. After having expected much of them, the +people were amazed and bitterly disappointed at their apparent +indifference toward the future of Rumania. Then there were the +unfortunate incidents at Odessa, the withdrawal of the French forces +from that city before the advance of the Bolsheviks, and the regrettable +happening in the French Black Sea fleet These things, of course, +contributed to loss of French prestige. Another contributory factor has +been the lack of enterprise of French capitalists, causing those who +control the financial and economic development of Rumania to seek +encouragement and assistance elsewhere. But the underlying reason for +the deep-seated distrust of France is to be found, I think, in France's +attempt to maintain the balance of power in Southeastern Europe by +building up a strong Jugoslavia. Now the Rumanians, it must be +remembered, hate the Jugoslavs even more bitterly than they hate the +Hungarians--and they are far more afraid of them. This hatred is not +merely the result of the age-long antagonism between the Latin and the +Slav; it is also political. The Rumanians have watched with growing +jealousy and apprehension the expansion of Serbia into a state with a +population and area nearly equal to their own. After having long dreamed +of the day when they would themselves be arbiters of the destinies of +the nations of Southeastern Europe, they see their political supremacy +challenged by the new Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, behind +which they discern the power and influence of France. When the +dismemberment of the Austro-Hungarian Empire began, Rumania demanded and +expected the whole of the great rich province of the Banat, with the +Maros River for her northern and the Danube for her southern frontier. + +"But that would place our capital within range of the Rumanian +artillery," the Serbian prime minister is said to have exclaimed. + +"Then move your capital," the Rumanian premier responded drily. + +As a result of this controversy over the Banat the relations of the two +nations have been strained almost to the breaking-point. When I was in +the Banat in the autumn of 1919 the Rumanian and Serbian frontier +guards were glowering at each other like fighting terriers held in +leash, and the slightest untoward incident would have precipitated a +conflict! Although, by the terms of the Treaty of St. Germain, +Jugoslavia was awarded the western half of the Banat, Rumania is +prepared to take advantage of the first opportunity which presents +itself to take it away from her rival. When I was in Bucharest a cabinet +minister concluded a lengthy exposition of Rumania's position by +declaring: + +"Within the next two or three years, in all probability, there will be a +war between Jugoslavia and Italy over the Dalmatian question. The day +that Jugoslavia goes to war with Italy we will attack Jugoslavia and +seize the Banat. The Danube is Rumania's natural and logical frontier." + +This would seem to bear out the assertion that there exists a secret +alliance between Italy and Rumania, which, if true, would place +Jugoslavia in the unhappy position of a nut between the jaws of a +cracker. I have also been told on excellent authority that there is +likewise an "understanding" between Italy and Bulgaria that, should the +former become engaged in a war with the Jugoslavs, the latter will +attack the Serbs from the east and regain her lost provinces in +Macedonia. A pleasant prospect for Southeastern Europe, truly. + +While we were in Bucharest we received an invitation--"command" is the +correct word according to court usage--to visit the King and Queen of +Rumania at their Château of Pelesch, near Sinaia, in the Carpathians. It +is about a hundred miles by road from the capital to Sinaia and the +first half of the journey, which we made by motor, was over a road as +execrable as any we found in the Balkans. Upon reaching the foothills of +the Carpathians, however, the highway, which had been steadily growing +worse, suddenly took a turn for the better--due, no doubt, to the +invigorating qualities of the mountain atmosphere--and climbed +vigorously upward through wild gorges and splendid pine forests which +reminded me of the Adirondacks of Northern New York. Notwithstanding the +atrocious condition of the highway, which constantly threatened to +dislocate our joints as well as those of the car, and the choking, +blinding clouds of yellow dust, every change of figure on the +speedometer brought new and interesting scenes. For mile after mile the +road, straight as though marked out by a ruler, ran between fields of +wheat and corn as vast as those of our own West. In spite of the fact +that the Austro-Germans carried off all the animals and farming +implements they could lay their hands on, the agricultural prosperity of +Rumania is astounding. In 1916, for example, while involved in a +terribly destructive war, Rumania produced more wheat than Minnesota and +about twenty-five times as much corn as our three Pacific Coast states +combined. At frequent intervals we passed huge scarlet threshing +machines, most of them labeled "Made in U.S.A.," which were centers of +activity for hundreds of white-smocked peasants who were hauling in the +grain with ox-teams, feeding it into the voracious maws of the machines, +and piling the residue of straw into the largest stacks I have ever +seen. As we drew near the mountains the grain fields gave way to grazing +lands where great herds of cattle of various breeds--brindled milch +animals, massive cream-colored oxen, blue-gray buffalo with elephant +like hides and broad, curving horns, and gaunt steers that looked for +all the world like Texas longhorns--browsed amid the lush green grass. + +Though the villages of the Wallachian plain are few and far between, and +though it is no uncommon thing for a peasant to walk a dozen miles from +his home to the fields in which he works, the whole region seemed a-hum +with industry. The Rumanian peasant, like his fellows below the Danube, +is, as a rule, a good-natured, easy-going though easily excited, +reasonably honest and extremely industrious fellow who labors from dawn +to darkness in six days of the week and spends the seventh in harmless +village carouses, chiefly characterized by dancing, music and the cheap +native wine. Rumania is one of the few countries in Europe where the +peasants still dress like the pictures on the postcards. The men wear +curly-brimmed shovel hats of black felt, like those affected by English +curates, and loose shirts of white linen, whose tails, instead of being +tucked into the trousers, flap freely about their legs, giving them the +appearance of having responded to an alarm of fire without waiting to +finish dressing. On Sundays and holidays men and women alike appear in +garments covered with the gorgeous needlework for which Rumania is +famous, some of the women's dresses being so heavily embroidered in gold +and silver that from a little distance the wearers look as though they +were enveloped in chain mail. A considerable and undesirable element of +Rumania's population consists of gipsies, whence their name of Romany, +or Rumani. The Rumanian gipsies, who are nomads and vagrants like their +kinsmen in the United States, are generally lazy, quarrelsome, dishonest +and untrustworthy, supporting themselves by horse-trading and +cattle-stealing or by their flocks and herds. We stopped near one of +their picturesque encampments in order to repair a tire and I took a +picture of a young woman with a child in her arms, but when I declined +to pay her the five lei she demanded for the privilege, she flew at me +like an angry cat, screaming curses and maledictions. But her picture +was not worth five lei, as you can see for yourself. + +[Illustration: A PEASANT OF OLD SERBIA + +The Serbian peasant is simple, kindly, hospitable, honest, and generous, +and, though he could not be described ... as a hard worker, his wife +invariably is] + +[Illustration: THE GYPSY WHO DEMANDED FIVE LEI FOR THE PRIVILEGE OF +TAKING HER PICTURE] + +The Castle of Pelesch is just such a royal residence as Anthony Hope has +depicted in _The Prisoner of Zenda_. It gives the impression, at first +sight, of a confusion of turrets, gables, balconies, terraces, +parapets and fountains, but one quickly forgets its architectural +shortcomings in the beauty of its surroundings. It stands amid velvet +lawns and wonderful rose gardens in a sort of forest glade, from which +the pine-clothed slopes of the Carpathians rise steeply on every side, +the beam-and-plaster walls, the red-tiled roofs, and the blazing gardens +of the château forming a striking contrast to the austerity of the +mountains and the solemnity of the encircling forest. + +We had rather expected to be presented to Queen Marie with some +semblance of formality in one of the reception rooms of the château, but +she sent word by her lady-in-waiting that she would receive us in the +gardens. A few minutes later she came swinging toward us across a great +stretch of rolling lawn, a splendid figure of a woman, dressed in a +magnificent native costume of white and silver, a white scarf partially +concealing her masses of tawny hair, a long-bladed poniard in a silver +sheath hanging from her girdle. At her heels were a dozen Russian wolf +hounds, the gift, so she told me, of the Grand Duke Nicholas, the former +commander-in-chief of the Russian armies. I have seen many queens, but +I have never seen one who so completely meets the popular conception of +what a queen should look like as Marie of Rumania. Though in the middle +forties, her complexion is so faultless, her physique so superb, her +presence so commanding that, were she utterly unknown, she would still +be a center of attraction in any assemblage. Had she not been born to a +crown she would almost certainly have made a great name for herself, +probably as an actress. She paints exceptionally well and has written +several successful books and stories, thereby following the example of +her famous predecessor on the Rumanian throne, Queen Elizabeth, better +known as Carmen Sylva. She speaks English like an Englishwoman, as well +she may, for she is a granddaughter of Queen Victoria. She is also a +descendant of the Romanoffs, for one of her grandfathers was Alexander +III of Russia. In her manner she is more simple and democratic than many +American women that I know, her poise and simplicity being in striking +contrast to the manners of two of my countrywomen who had spent the +night preceding our arrival at the castle and who were manifestly much +impressed by this contact with the Lord's Anointed. When luncheon was +announced her second daughter, Princess Marie, had not put in an +appearance. But, instead of despatching the major domo to inform her +Royal Highness that the meal was served, the Queen stepped to the foot +of the great staircase and called, "Hurry up, Mignon. You're keeping us +all waiting," whereupon a voice replied from the upper regions, "All +right, mamma. I'll be down in a minute." Not much like the picture of +palace life that the novelists and the motion-picture playwrights give +us, is it? I might add that the Queen commonly refers to the plump young +princess as "Fatty," a nickname which she hardly deserves, however. In +her conversations with me the Queen was at times almost disconcertingly +frank. "Royalty is going out of fashion," she remarked on one occasion, +"but I like my job and I'm going to do everything I can to keep it." To +Mrs. Powell she said, "I have beauty, intelligence and executive +ability. I would be successful in life if I were not a queen." + +Unlike many persons who occupy exalted positions, she has a real sense +of humor. + +"Yesterday," she remarked, "was Nicholas's birthday," referring to her +second son, Prince Nicholas, who, since his elder brother, Prince Carol, +renounced his rights to the throne in order to marry the girl he loved, +has become the heir apparent. "At breakfast his father remarked, 'I'm +sorry, Nicholas, but I haven't any birthday present for you. The shops +in Bucharest were pretty well cleaned out by the Germans, you know, and +I didn't remember your birthday in time to send to Paris for a present.' +'Do you really wish to give Nicholas a present, Nando?' (the diminutive +of Ferdinand) I asked him. 'Of course I do,' the King answered, 'but +what is there to give him?' 'That's the easiest thing in the world,' I +replied. 'There is nothing that would give Nicholas so much pleasure as +an engraving of his dear father--on a thousand-franc note.'" + +Prince Nicholas, the future king of Rumania, who is being educated at +Eton, looks and acts like any normal American "prep" school boy. + +"Do the boys still wear top hats at Eton?" I asked him. + +"Yes, they do," he answered, "but it's a silly custom. And they cost two +guineas apiece. I leave it to you, Major, if two guineas isn't too much +for any hat." + +When I told him that in democratic America certain Fifth Avenue hatters +charge the equivalent of five guineas for a bowler he looked at me in +frank unbelief. "But then," he remarked, "all Americans are rich." + +Shortly before luncheon we were joined by King Ferdinand, a slenderly +built man, somewhat under medium height, with a grizzled beard, a genial +smile and merry, twinkling eyes. He wore the gray-green field uniform +and gold-laced kepi of a Rumanian general, the only thing about his +dress which suggested his exalted rank being the insignia of the Order +of Michael the Brave, which hung from his neck by a gold-and-purple +ribbon. Were you to see him in other clothes and other circumstances you +might well mistake him for an active and successful professional man. +King Ferdinand is the sort of man one enjoys chatting with in front of +an open fire over the cigars, for, in addition to being a shrewd judge +of men and events and having a remarkably exact knowledge of world +affairs, he possesses in an altogether exceptional degree the qualities +of tact, kindliness and humor. + +The King did not hesitate to express his indignation that the re-making +of the map of Europe should have been entrusted to men who possessed so +little first-hand knowledge of the nations whose boundaries they were +re-shaping. + +"A few days before the signing of the Treaty of St. Germain," he told +me, "Lloyd George sent for one of the experts attached to the Peace +Conference. + +"'Where is this Banat that Rumania and Serbia are quarreling over?' he +inquired. + +"'I will show you, sir,' the attaché answered, unrolling a map of +southeastern Europe. For several minutes he explained in detail to the +British Premier the boundaries of the Banat and the conflicting +territorial claims to which its division had given rise. But when he +paused Lloyd George made no response. He was sound asleep! + +"Yet a little group of men," the King continued, "who know no more about +the nations whose destinies they are deciding than Lloyd George knew +about the Banat, have abrogated to themselves the right to cut up and +apportion territories as casually as though they were dividing +apple-tarts." + +[Illustration: KING FERDINAND TELLS MRS. POWELL HIS OPINION OF THE +FASHION IN WHICH THE PEACE CONFERENCE TREATED RUMANIA, WHILE QUEEN MARIE +LISTENS APPROVINGLY] + +The impression prevails in other countries that it is Queen Marie who is +really the head of the Rumanian royal family and that the King is little +more than a figurehead. With this estimate I do not agree. Rumania could +have no better spokesman than Queen Marie, whose talents, beauty, and +exceptional tact peculiarly fit her for the difficult rôle she has been +called upon to play. But the King, though he is by nature quiet and +retiring, is by no means lacking in political sagacity or the courage of +his convictions, being, I am convinced, as important a factor in the +government of his country as the limitations of its constitution permit. +Though none too well liked, I imagine, by the professional politicians, +who in Rumania, as in other countries, resent any attempt at +interference by the sovereign with their plans, the royal couple are +immensely popular with the masses of the people, Ferdinand frequently +being referred to as "the peasants' King." In the darkest days of the +war, when Rumania was overrun by the enemy and it seemed as though +Moldavia and the northern Dobrudja were all that could be saved to the +nation, King Ferdinand and Queen Marie, instead of escaping from their +country or asking the enemy for terms, retreated with the army to Jassy, +on the easternmost limits of the kingdom, where they underwent the +horrors of that terrible winter with their soldiers, the King serving +with the troops in the field and the Queen working in the hospitals as a +Red Cross nurse. Less than three years later, however, on November +twentieth, 1919, there assembled in Bucharest the first parliament of +Greater Rumania, attended by deputies from all those Rumanian +regions--Bessarabia, Transylvania, the Banat, the Bucovina and the +Dobrudja--which had been restored to the Rumanian motherland. At the +head of the chamber, in the great gilt chair of state, sat Ferdinand I, +who, from the fugitive ruler, shivering with his ragged soldiers in the +frozen marshes beside the Pruth, has become the sovereign of a country +having the sixth largest population in Europe and has taken his place in +Rumanian history beside Stephen the Great and Michael the Brave as +Ferdinand the Liberator. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +MAKING A NATION TO ORDER + + +From the young officers who wore on their shoulders the silver greyhound +of the American Courier Service we heard many discouraging tales of the +annoyances and discomforts for which we must be prepared in traveling +through Hungary, the Banat and Jugoslavia. But, to tell the truth, I did +not take these warnings very seriously, for I had observed that a +profoundly pessimistic attitude of mind characterized all of the +Americans or English whose duties had kept them in the Balkans for any +length of time. In Salonika this mental condition was referred to as +"the Balkan tap"--derived, no doubt, from the verb "to knock," as with a +hammer--and it usually implied that those suffering from the ailment had +outstayed their period of usefulness and should be sent home. + +Thrice weekly a train composed of an assortment of ramshackle and +dilapidated coaches, called by courtesy the Orient Express, which +maintained an average speed of fifteen miles an hour, left Bucharest for +Vincovce, a small junction town in the Banat, where it was supposed to +make connections with the south-bound Simplon Express from Paris to +Belgrade and with the north-bound express from Belgrade to Paris. The +Simplon Express likewise ran thrice weekly, so, if the connections were +missed at Vincovce, the passengers were compelled to spend at least two +days in a small Hungarian town which was notorious, even in that region, +for its discomforts and its dirt. All went well with us, however, the +train at one time attaining the dizzy speed of thirty miles an hour, +until, in a particularly desolate portion of the great Hungarian plain, +we came to an abrupt halt. When, after a half hour's wait, I descended +to ascertain the cause of the delay, I found the train crew surrounded +by a group of indignant and protesting passengers. + +"What's the trouble?" I inquired. + +"The engineer claims that he has run out of coal," some one answered. +"But he says that there is a coal depot three or four kilometers ahead +and that, if each first-class passenger will contribute fifty francs, +and each second-class passenger twenty francs, he figures that it will +enable him to buy just enough coal to reach Vincovce. Otherwise, he +says, we will probably miss both connections, which means that we must +stay in Vincovce for forty-eight hours. And if you had ever seen +Vincovce you would understand that such a prospect is anything but +alluring." + +While my fellow-passengers were noisily debating the question I strolled +ahead to take a look at the engine. As I had been led to expect from the +stories I had heard from the courier officers, the tender contained an +ample supply of coal--enough, it seemed to me, to haul the train to +Trieste. + +"This is nothing but a hold-up," I told the assembled passengers. "There +is plenty of coal in the tender. I am as anxious to make the connection +as any of you, but I will settle here and raise bananas, or whatever +they do raise in the Banat, before I will submit to this highwayman's +demands." + +Seeing that his bluff had been called, the engineer, favoring me with a +murderous glance, sullenly climbed into his cab and the train started, +only to stop again, however, a few miles further on, this time, the +engineer explained, because the engine had broken down. There being no +way of disputing this statement, it became a question of pay or +stay--and we stayed. The engineer did not get his tribute and we did not +get our train at Vincovce, where we spent twenty hot, hungry and +extremely disagreeable hours before the arrival of a local train bound +for Semlin, across the Danube from Belgrade. We completed our journey to +the Jugoslav capital in a fourth-class compartment into which were +already squeezed two Serbian soldiers, eight peasants, a crate of live +poultry and a dog, to say nothing of a multitude of small and undesired +occupants whose presence caused considerable annoyance to every one, +including the dog. We were glad when the train arrived at Semlin. + +Late in the summer of 1919, as a result of the reconstruction of the +railway bridges which had been blown up by the Bulgarians early in the +war, through service between Salonika and Belgrade was restored. As the +journey consumed from three to five days, however, the train stopping +for the night at stations where the hotel accommodation was of the most +impossible description, the American and British officials and +relief-workers who were compelled to make the journey (I never heard of +any one making it for pleasure) usually hired a freight car, which they +fitted up with army cots and a small cook-stove, thus traveling in +comparative comfort. + +Curiously enough, the only trains running on anything approaching a +schedule in the Balkans were those loaded with Swiss goods and belonging +to the Swiss Government. In crossing Southern Hungary we passed at least +half-a-dozen of them, they being readily distinguished by a Swiss flag +painted on each car. Each train, consisting of forty cars, was +accompanied by a Swiss officer and twenty infantrymen--finely set-up +fellows in _feldgrau_ with steel helmets modeled after the German +pattern. Had the trains not been thus guarded, I was told, the goods +would never have reached their destination and the cars, which are the +property of the Swiss State Railways, would never have been returned. It +is by such drastic methods as this that Switzerland, though hard hit by +the war, has kept the wheels of her industries turning and her currency +from serious depreciation. I have rarely seen more hopeless-looking +people than those congregated on the platforms of the little stations at +which we stopped in Hungary. The Rumanian armies had swept the country +clean of livestock and agricultural machinery, throwing thousands of +peasants out of work, and, owing to the appalling depreciation of the +kroner, which was worth less than a twentieth of its normal value, great +numbers of people who, under ordinary conditions, would have been +described as comfortably well off, found themselves with barely +sufficient resources to keep themselves from want. To add to their +discouragement, the greatest uncertainty prevailed as to Hungary's +future. In order to obtain an idea of just how familiar the inhabitants +of the rural districts were with political conditions, I asked four +intelligent-looking men in succession who was the ruler of Hungary and +what was its present form of government. The first opined that the +Archduke Joseph had been chosen king; another ventured the belief that +the country was a republic with Bela Kun as president; the third +asserted that Hungary had been annexed to Rumania; while the last man I +questioned said quite frankly that he didn't know who was running the +country, or what its form of government was, and that he didn't much +care. As a result of the decision of the Peace Conference which awarded +Transylvania to Rumania and divided the Banat between Rumania and +Jugoslavia, Hungary finds herself stripped of virtually all her forests, +all her mines, all her oil wells, and all of her manufactories save +those in Budapest, thus stripping the bankrupt and demoralized nation of +practically all of her resources save her wheat-fields. I talked with a +number of Americans and English who were conversant with Hungary's +internal condition and they agreed that it was doubtful if the country, +stripped of its richest territories, deprived of most of its resources, +and hemmed in by hostile and jealous peoples, could long exist as an +independent state. On several occasions I heard the opinion expressed +that sooner or later the Hungarians, in order to save themselves from +complete ruin, would ask to be admitted to the Jugoslav Confederation, +thereby obtaining for their products an outlet to the sea. In any +event, the Hungarians appear to have a more friendly feeling for their +Jugoslav neighbors than for the Rumanians, whom they charge with a +deliberate attempt to bring about their economic ruin. + +In spite of the prohibitive cost of labor and materials, we found that +the traces of the Austrian bombardment of Belgrade in 1914, which did +enormous damage to the Serbian capital, were rapidly being effaced and +that the city was fast resuming its pre-war appearance. The place was as +busy as a boom town in the oil country. The Grand Hotel, where the food +was the best and cheapest we found in the Balkans, was filled to the +doors with officers, politicians, members of parliament--for the +Skupshtina was in session--relief workers, commercial travelers and +concession seekers, and the huge Hotel Moskowa, built, I believe, with +Russian capital, was about to reopen. Architecturally, Belgrade shows +many traces of Muscovite influence, many of the more important buildings +having the ornate façades of pink, green and purple tiles, the colored +glass windows, and the gilded domes which are so characteristically +Russian. Though the main thoroughfare of the city, formerly called the +Terásia but now known as Milan Street, is admirably paved with wooden +blocks, the cobble pavements of the other streets have remained +unchanged since the days of Turkish rule, being so rough that it is +almost impossible to drive a motor car over them without imminent danger +of breaking the springs. Five minutes' walk from the center of the city, +on a promontory commanding a superb view of the Danube and its junction +with the Save, is a really charming park known as the Slopes of +Dreaming, where, on fine evenings, almost the entire population of the +capital appears to be promenading, the rather drab appearance of an +urban crowd being brightened by the gaily embroidered costumes of the +peasants and the silver-trimmed uniforms of the Serbian officers. + +The palace known as the Old Konak, where King Alexander and Queen Draga +were assassinated under peculiarly revolting circumstances on the night +of June 11, 1905, and from an upper window of which their mutilated +bodies were thrown into the garden, has been torn down, presumably +because of its unpleasant associations for the present dynasty, but +only a stone's throw away from the tragic spot is being erected a large +and ornate palace of gray stone, ornamented with numerous carvings, as a +residence for Prince-Regent Alexander, who, when I was there, was +occupying a modest one-story building on the opposite side of the +street. By far the most interesting building in Belgrade, however, is a +low, tile-roofed, white-walled wine-shop at the corner of Knes +Mihajelowa Uliza and Kolartsch Uliza, which is pointed out to visitors +as "the Cradle of the War," for in the low-ceilinged room on the second +floor is said to have been hatched the plot which resulted in the +assassination of the Austrian archducal couple at Serajevo in the spring +of 1914 and thereby precipitated Armageddon. + +[Illustration: THE WINE-SHOP WHICH IS POINTED OUT TO VISITORS AS "THE +CRADLE OF THE WAR"] + +In this connection, here is a story, told me by a Czechoslovak who had +served as an officer in the Serbian army during the war, which throws an +interesting sidelight on the tragedy of Serajevo. This officer's uncle, +a colonel in the Austrian army, had been, it seemed, equerry to the +Archduke Ferdinand, being in attendance on the Archduke at the Imperial +shooting-lodge in Bohemia when, early in the spring of 1914, the +German Emperor, accompanied by Admiral von Tirpitz, went there, +ostensibly for the shooting. The day after their arrival, according to +my informant's story, the Emperor and the Archduke went out with the +guns, leaving Admiral von Tirpitz at the lodge with the Archduchess. The +equerry, who was on duty in an anteroom, through a partly opened door +overheard the Admiral urging the Archduchess to obtain the consent of +her husband--with whom she was known to exert extraordinary +influence--to a union of Austria-Hungary with Germany upon the death of +Francis Joseph, who was then believed to be dying--a scheme which had +long been cherished by the Kaiser and the Pan-Germans. + +"Never will I lend my influence to such a plan!" the equerry heard the +Archduchess violently exclaim. "Never! Never! Never!" + +At the moment the Emperor and the Archduke, having returned from their +battue, entered the room, whereupon the Archduchess, her voice shrill +with indignation, poured out to her husband the story of von Tirpitz's +proposal. The Archduke, always noted for the violence of his temper, +promptly sided with his wife, angrily accusing the Kaiser of intriguing +behind his back against the independence of Austria. Ensued a violent +altercation between the ruler of Germany and the Austrian heir-apparent, +which ended in the Kaiser and his adviser abruptly terminating their +visit and departing the same evening for Berlin. + +For the truth of this story I do not vouch; I merely repeat it in the +words in which it was told to me by an officer whose veracity I have no +reason to question. There are many things which point to its +probability. Certain it is that the Archduke, who was a man of strong +character and passionately devoted to the best interests of the Dual +Monarchy, was the greatest obstacle to the Kaiser's scheme for the union +of the two empires under his rule, a scheme which, could it have been +realized, would have given Germany that highroad to the East and that +outlet to the Warm Water of which the Pan-Germans had long dreamed. The +assassination of the Archduke a few weeks later not only removed the +greatest stumbling-block to these schemes of Teutonic expansion, but it +further served the Kaiser's purpose by forcing Austria into war with +Serbia, thereby making Austria responsible, in the eyes of the world, +for launching the conflict which the Kaiser had planned. + +There has never been any conclusive proof, remember, that the Serbs were +responsible for Ferdinand's assasination. Not that there is anything in +their history which would lead one to believe that they would balk at +that method of removing an enemy, but, regarded from a political +standpoint, it would have been the most unintelligent and short-sighted +thing they could possibly have done. Nor are the Serbs and the +Pan-Germans the only ones to whom the crime might logically be traced. +Ferdinand, remember, had many enemies within the borders of his own +country. The Austrian anti-clericals hated and distrusted him because he +surrounded himself by Jesuit advisers and because he was believed to be +unduly under the influence of the Church of Rome. He was equally +unpopular with a large and powerful element of the Hungarians, who +foresaw a serious diminution of their influence in the affairs of the +monarchy should the Archduke succeed in realizing his dream of a Triple +Kingdom composed of Austria, Hungary and the Southern Slavs. + +Strange indeed are the changes which have been brought about by the +greatest conflict. Ferdinand, descendant of a long line of princes, +kings and emperors, has passed round that dark corner whence no man +returns, but his ambitious dreams of a triple kingdom which would +include the Southern Slavs have survived him, though in a somewhat +modified form. But he who sits on the throne of the new kingdom, and who +rules to-day over a great portion of the former dominions of the +Hapsburgs, instead of being a scion of the Imperial House of Austria, is +the great-grandson of a Serbian blacksmith. + +Owing to the ill-health and advanced age of King Peter of Serbia, his +second son, Alexander, is Prince-Regent of the Kingdom of the Serbs, +Croats and Slovenes. Prince Alexander, a slender, dark-complexioned man +with characteristically Slav features, was educated in Vienna and is +said to be an excellent soldier. He is extremely democratic, simple in +manner, a student, a hard worker, and devoted to the best interests of +his people. Though he is an accomplished horseman, a daring, even +reckless motorist, and an excellent shot, he is probably the loneliest +man in his kingdom, for he has no close associates of his own age, being +surrounded by elderly and serious-minded advisers; his aged father is in +a sanitarium, his scapegrace elder brother lives in Paris, and his +sister, a Russian grand duchess, makes her home on the Riviera. Though +old beyond his years and visibly burdened by the responsibilities of his +difficult position, he possesses a peculiarly winning manner and is +immensely popular with his soldiers, whose hardships he shared +throughout the war. Though he enjoys no great measure of popularity +among his new Croat and Slovene subjects, who might be expected to +regard any Serb ruler with a certain degree of jealousy and suspicion, +he has unquestionably won their profound respect. It is a difficult and +trying position which this young man occupies, and it is not made any +easier for him, I imagine, by the knowledge that, should he make a false +step, should he arouse the enmity of certain of the powerful factions +which surround him, the fate of his predecessor and namesake, King +Alexander, might quite conceivably befall him. + +I have been asked if, in my opinion, the peoples composing the new state +of Jugoslavia will stick together. If there could be effected a +confederation, modeled on that of Switzerland or the United States, in +which the component states would have equal representation, with the +executive power vested in a Federal Council, as in Switzerland, then I +believe that Jugoslavia would develop into a stable and prosperous +nation. But I very much doubt if the Croats, the Slovenes, the Bosnians +and the Montenegrins will willingly consent to a permanent arrangement +whereby the new nation is placed under a Serbian dynasty, no matter how +complete are the safeguards afforded by the constitution or how +conscientious and fair-minded the sovereign himself may be. No one +questions the ability or the honesty of purpose of Prince Alexander, but +the non-Serb elements feel, and not wholly without justification, that a +Serbian prince on the throne means Serbian politicians in places of +authority, thereby giving Serbia a disproportionate share of authority +in the government of Jugoslavia, as Prussia had in the government of the +German Empire. + +Already there have been manifestations of friction between the Serbs and +the Croats and between the Serbs and the Slovenes, to say nothing of the +open hostility which exists between the Serbs and certain Montenegrin +factions, to which I have alluded in a preceding chapter. It should be +remembered that the Croats and Slovenes, though members of the great +family of Southern Slavs, have by no means as much in common with their +Serb kinsmen as is generally believed. Croatia and Slovenia have both +educated and wealthy classes. Serbia, on the contrary, has a very small +educated class and practically no wealthy class, it being said that +there is not a millionaire in the country. Slovenia and Croatia each +have their aristocracies, with titles and estates and traditions; +Serbia's population is wholly composed of peasants, or of business and +professional men who come from peasant stock. As a result of the large +sums which were spent on public instruction in Croatia and Slovenia +under Austrian rule, only a comparatively small proportion of the +population is illiterate. But in Serbia public education is still in a +regrettably backward state, the latest figures available showing that +less than seventeen per cent. of the population can read and write, a +condition which, I doubt not, will rapidly improve with the +reestablishment of peace. Laibach (now known as Lubiana), the chief city +of Croatia, Agram, in Slovenia, and Serajevo, the capital of Bosnia, +have long been known as education centers, possessing a culture and +educational facilities of which far larger cities would have reason to +be proud. But Belgrade, having been, as it were, on the frontier of +European civilization, has been compelled to concentrate its energies +and its resources on commerce and the national defense. The attitude of +the people of Agram toward the less sophisticated and cultured Serbs +might be compared to that of an educated Bostonian toward an Arizona +ranchman--a worthy, industrious fellow, no doubt, but rather lacking in +culture and refinement. The truth of the matter is that the Croats and +the Slovenes, though only too glad to escape the Allies' wrath by +claiming kinship with the Serbs and taking refuge under the banner of +Jugoslavia, at heart consider themselves immeasurably superior to their +southern kinsmen, whose political dictation, now that the storm has +passed, they are beginning to resent. + +The first impression which the Serb makes upon a stranger is rarely a +favorable one. As an American diplomat, who is a sincere friend of +Serbia, remarked to me, "The Serb has neither manner nor manners. The +visitor always sees his worst side while his best side remains hidden. +He never puts his best foot forward." + +A certain sullen defiance of public opinion is, it has sometimes seemed +to me, a characteristic of the Serb. He gives one the impression of +constantly carrying a chip on his shoulder and daring any one to knock +it off. He is always eager for an argument, but, like so many +argumentative persons, it is almost impossible to convince him that he +is in the wrong. The slightest opposition often drives him into an +almost childlike rage and if things go against him he is apt to charge +his opponent with insincerity or prejudice. He can see things only one +way, _his_ way and he resents criticism so violently that it is seldom +wise to argue with him. + +Though the Serb, when afforded opportunities for education, usually +shows great brilliancy as a student and often climbs high in his chosen +profession, he all too frequently lacks the mental poise and the power +of restraining his passions which are the heritage of those peoples who +have been educated for generations. + +In Serbia, as in the other Balkan states, it is the peasants who form +the most substantial and likeable element of the population. The Serbian +peasant is simple, kindly, honest, and hospitable, and, though he could +not be described with strict truthfulness as a hard worker, his wife +invariably is. Although, like most primitive peoples, he is suspicious +of strangers, once he is assured that they are friends there is no +sacrifice that he will not make for their comfort, going cold and +hungry, if necessary, in order that they may have his blanket and his +food. He is one of the very best soldiers in Europe, somewhat careless +in dress, drill and discipline, perhaps, but a good shot, a tireless +marcher, inured to every form of hardship, and invariably cheerful and +uncomplaining. Perhaps it is his instinctive love of soldiering which +makes him so reluctant to lay down the rifle and take up the hoe. He +has fought three victorious wars in rapid succession and he has come to +believe that his metier is fighting. In this he is tacitly encouraged by +France, who sees in an armed and ready-to-fight-at-the-drop-of-the-hat +Jugoslavia a counterbalance to Italian ambitions in the Balkans. + +Though there are irresponsible elements in both Jugoslavia and Italy who +talk lightly of war, I am convinced that the great bulk of the +population in both countries realize that such a war would be the height +of shortsightedness and folly. Throughout the Fiume and Dalmatian crises +precipitated by d'Annunzio, Jugoslavia behaved with exemplary patience, +dignity and discretion. Let her future foreign relations continue to be +characterized by such self-control; let her turn her energies to +developing the vast territories to which she has so unexpectedly fallen +heir; let her take immediate steps toward inaugurating systems of +transportation, public instruction and sanitation; let her waste no time +in ridding herself of her jingo politicians and officers--let Jugoslavia +do these things and her future will take care of itself. She is a young +country, remember. Let us be charitable in judging her. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The New Frontiers of Freedom from the +Alps to the Ægean, by Edward Alexander Powell + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM *** + +***** This file should be named 17292-0.txt or 17292-0.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/7/2/9/17292/ + +Produced by Marilynda Fraser-Cunliffe, Taavi Kalju and the +Online Distributed Proofreaders Europe at +http://dp.rastko.net. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The New Frontiers of Freedom from the Alps to the Ægean + +Author: Edward Alexander Powell + +Release Date: December 12, 2005 [EBook #17292] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM *** + + + + +Produced by Marilynda Fraser-Cunliffe, Taavi Kalju and the +Online Distributed Proofreaders Europe at +http://dp.rastko.net. (This file was made using scans of +public domain works from the University of Michigan Digital +Libraries.) + + + + + + + + +_BY E. ALEXANDER POWELL_ + +THE NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM +THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY +THE LAST FRONTIER +GENTLEMEN ROVERS +THE END OF THE TRAIL +FIGHTING IN FLANDERS +THE ROAD TO GLORY +VIVE LA FRANCE! +ITALY AT WAR + +_CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS_ + + +[Illustration: THE QUEEN OF RUMANIA TELLS MAJOR POWELL THAT SHE ENJOYS +BEING A QUEEN] + + + + +THE NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM + +_FROM THE ALPS TO THE ÆGEAN_ + +BY + +E. ALEXANDER POWELL + + +NEW YORK +CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS +1920 + +COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY +CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS + +_Published April, 1920_ + + + +TO A REAL AND LIFELONG FRIEND +MAJOR J. STANLEY MOORE +OF THE DEPARTMENT OF STATE + + + + +AN ACKNOWLEDGMENT + + +Owing to the disturbed conditions which prevailed throughout most of +southeastern Europe during the summer and autumn of 1919, the journey +recorded in the following pages could not have been taken had it not +been for the active cooperation of the Governments through whose +territories we traveled and the assistance afforded by their officials +and by the officers of their armies and navies, to say nothing of the +hospitality shown us by American diplomatic and consular +representatives, relief-workers and others. From the Alps to the Ægean, +in Italy, Dalmatia, Montenegro, Albania, Macedonia, Turkey, Rumania, +Hungary and Serbia we met with universal courtesy and kindness. + +For the innumerable courtesies which we were shown in Italy and the +regions under Italian occupation I am indebted to His Excellency +Francisco Nitti, Prime Minister of Italy, and to former Premier +Orlando, to General Armando Diaz, Commander-in-Chief of the Italian +Armies; to Lieutenant-General Albricci, Minister of War; to Admiral +Thaon di Revel, Minister of Marine; to Vice-Admiral Count Enrice Mulo, +Governor-General of Dalmatia; to Lieutenant-General Piacentini, +Governor-General of Albania, to Lieutenant-General Montanari, commanding +the Italian troops in Dalmatia; to Rear-Admiral Wenceslao Piazza, +commanding the Italian forces in the Curzolane Islands; to +Lieutenant-Colonel Antonio Chiesa, commanding the Italian troops in +Montenegro; to Colonel Aldo Aymonino, Captain Marchese Piero Ricci and +Captain Ernesto Tron of the _Comando Supremo_, the last-named being our +companion and cicerone on a motor-journey of nearly three thousand +miles; to Captain Roggieri of the Royal Italian Navy, Chief of Staff to +the Governor-General of Dalmatia; to Captain Amedeo Acton, commanding +the "_Filiberto_"; to Captain Fausto M. Leva, commanding the +"_Dandolo_"; to Captain Giulio Menin, commanding the "_Puglia_," and to +Captain Filipopo, commanding the "_Ardente_," all of whom entertained us +with the hospitality so characteristic of the Italian Navy; to +Lieutenant Giuseppe Castruccio, our cicerone in Rome and my companion on +dirigible and airplane flights; to Lieutenant Bartolomeo Poggi and +Engineer-Captain Alexander Ceccarelli, respectively commander and chief +engineer of the destroyer "_Sirio_," both of whom, by their unfailing +thoughtfulness and courtesy added immeasurably to the interest and +enjoyment of our voyage down the Adriatic from Fiume to Valona; to +Lieutenant Pellegrini di Tondo, our companion on the long journey by +motor across Albania and Macedonia; to Lieutenant Morpurgo, who showed +us many kindnesses during our stay in Salonika; to Baron San Martino of +the Italian Peace Delegation; to Lieutenant Stroppa-Quaglia, attaché of +the Italian Peace Delegation, and, above all else, to those valued +friends, Cavaliere Giuseppe Brambilla, Counselor of the Italian Embassy +in Washington; Major-General Gugliemotti, Military Attaché, and +Professor Vittorio Falorsi, formerly Secretary of the Embassy at +Washington, to each of whom I am indebted for countless kindnesses. No +list of those to whom I am indebted would be complete, however, unless +it included the name of my valued and lamented friend, the late Count +V. Macchi di Cellere, Italian Ambassador to the United States, whose +memory I shall never forget. + +I welcome this opportunity of expressing our appreciation of the +hospitality shown us by their Majesties King Ferdinand and Queen Marie +of Rumania, who entertained us at their Castle of Pelesch, and of +acknowledging my indebtedness to His Excellency M. Bratianu, Prime +Minister of Rumania, and to M. Constantinescu, Rumanian Minister of +Commerce. + +I am profoundly appreciative of the honor shown me by His Majesty King +Nicholas of Montenegro, and my grateful thanks are also due to His +Excellency General A. Gvosdenovitch, Aide-de-Camp to the King and former +Minister of Montenegro to the United States. + +For the trouble to which they put themselves in facilitating my visit to +Jugoslavia I am deeply grateful to His Excellency M. Grouitch, Minister +from the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes to the United States, +and to His Excellency M. Vesnitch, the Jugoslav Minister to France. + +From the long list of our own country-people abroad to whom we are +indebted for hospitality and kindness, I wish particularly to thank the +Honorable Thomas Nelson Page, formerly American Ambassador to Italy; the +Honorable Percival Dodge, American Minister to the Kingdom of the Serbs, +Croats and Slovenes; the Honorable Gabriel Bie Ravndal, American +Commissioner and Consul-General in Constantinople; the Honorable Francis +B. Keene, American Consul-General in Rome; Colonel Halsey Yates, U.S.A., +American Military Attaché at Bucharest; Lieutenant-Colonel L.G. Ament, +U.S.A., Director of the American Relief Administration in Rumania, who +was our host during our stay in Bucharest, as was Major Carey of the +American Red Cross during our visit in Salonika; Dr. Frances Flood, +Director of the American Red Cross Hospital in Monastir, and Mrs. Mary +Halsey Moran, in charge of American relief work in Constantza, in whose +hospitable homes we found a warm welcome during our stays in those +cities; Reverend and Mrs. Phineas Kennedy of Koritza, Albania; Dr. Henry +King, President of Oberlin College, and Charles R. Crane, Esquire, of +the Commission on Mandates in the Near East; Dr. Fisher, Professor of +Modern History at Robert College, Constantinople; and finally of three +friends in Rome, Mr. Cortese, representative in Italy of the Associated +Press; Dr. Webb, founder and director of the hospital for facial wounds +at Udine; and Nelson Gay, Esquire, the celebrated historian, all three +of whom shamefully neglected their personal affairs in order to give me +suggestions and assistance. + +To all of those named above, and to many others who are not named, I am +deeply grateful. + +E. Alexander Powell. + +Yokohama, Japan, +February, 1920. + + + + +CONTENTS + + +CHAPTER PAGE + + AN ACKNOWLEDGMENT vii + + I ACROSS THE REDEEMED LANDS 1 + + II THE BORDERLAND OF SLAV AND LATIN 56 + + III THE CEMETERY OF FOUR EMPIRES 110 + + IV UNDER THE CROSS AND THE CRESCENT 155 + + V WILL THE SICK MAN OF EUROPE RECOVER? 176 + + VI WHAT THE PEACE-MAKERS HAVE DONE ON THE DANUBE 206 + + VII MAKING A NATION TO ORDER 243 + + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS + + +The Queen of Rumania tells Major Powell that she + enjoys being a Queen _Frontispiece_ + + FACING PAGE + +His first sight of the Terra Irridenta 12 + +The end of the day 20 + +A little mother of the Tyrol 20 + +Italy's new frontier 28 + +This is not Venice, as you might suppose, but Trieste 46 + +At the gates of Fiume 60 + +The inhabitants of Fiume cheering d'Annunzio and his raiders 78 + +His Majesty Nicholas I, King of Montenegro 124 + +Two conspirators of Antivari 130 + +The head men of Ljaskoviki, Albania, waiting to bid Major and + Mrs. Powell farewell 142 + +The ancient walls of Salonika 158 + +Yildiz Kiosk, the favorite palace of Abdul-Hamid and his + successors on the throne of Osman 194 + +The Red Badge of Mercy in the Balkans 208 + +The gypsy who demanded five lei for the privilege of taking + her picture 234 + +A peasant of Old Serbia 234 + +King Ferdinand tells Mrs. Powell his opinion of the fashion in + which the Peace Conference treated Rumania 240 + +The wine-shop which is pointed out to visitors as "the Cradle + of the War" 252 + + + + +THE NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM + + + + +CHAPTER I + +ACROSS THE REDEEMED LANDS + + +It is unwise, generally speaking, to write about countries and peoples +when they are in a state of political flux, for what is true at the +moment of writing may be misleading the next. But the conditions which +prevailed in the lands beyond the Adriatic during the year succeeding +the signing of the Armistice were so extraordinary, so picturesque, so +wholly without parallel in European history, that they form a sort of +epilogue, as it were, to the story of the great conflict. To have +witnessed the dismemberment of an empire which was hoary with antiquity +when the Republic in which we live was yet unborn; to have seen +insignificant states expand almost overnight into powerful nations; to +have seen and talked with peoples who did not know from day to day the +form of government under which they were living, or the name of their +ruler, or the color of their flag; to have seen millions of human +beings transferred from sovereignty to sovereignty like cattle which +have been sold--these are sights the like of which will probably not be +seen again in our times or in those of our children, and, because they +serve to illustrate a chapter of History which is of immense importance, +I have tried to sketch them, in brief, sharp outline, in this book. + +Because I was curious to see for myself how the countrymen of Andreas +Hofer in South Tyrol would accept their enforced Italianization; whether +the Italians of Fiume would obey the dictum of President Wilson that +their city must be Slav; how the Turks of Smyrna and the Bulgarians of +Thrace would welcome Hellenic rule; whether the Croats and Slovenes and +Bosnians and Montenegrins were content to remain pasted in the Jugoslav +stamp-album; and because I wished to travel through these disputed +regions while the conditions and problems thus created were still new, +we set out, my wife and I, at about the time the Peace Conference was +drawing to a close, on a journey, made largely by motor-car and +destroyer, which took us from the Adige to the Vardar and from the +Vardar to the Pruth, along more than five thousand miles of those new +national boundaries--drawn in Paris by a lawyer, a doctor and a college +professor--which have been termed, with undue optimism perhaps, the +frontiers of freedom. + +Some of the things which I shall say in these pages will probably give +offense to those governments which showed us many courtesies. Those who +are privileged to speak for governments are fond of asserting that +_their_ governments have nothing to conceal and that they welcome honest +criticism, but long experience has taught me that when they are told +unpalatable truths governments are usually as sensitive and resentful as +friends. Now it has always seemed to me that a writer owes his first +allegiance to his readers. To misinform them by writing only half-truths +for the sake of retaining the good-will of those written about is as +unethical, to my way of thinking, as it is for a newspaper to suppress +facts which the public is entitled to know in order not to offend its +advertisers. Were I to show my appreciation of the many kindnesses which +we received from governments, sovereigns and officials by refraining +from unfavorable comment on their actions and their policies, this book +would possess about as much intrinsic value as those sumptuous volumes +which are written to the order of certain Latin-American republics, in +which the authors studiously avoid touching on such embarrassing +subjects as revolutions, assassinations, earthquakes, finances, or +fevers for fear of scaring away foreign investors or depreciating the +government securities. + +It is entirely possible that in forming some of my conclusions I was +unconsciously biased by the hospitality and kindness we were shown, for +it is human nature to have a more friendly feeling for the man who +invites you to dinner or sends you a card to his club than for the man +who ignores your existence; it is probable that I not infrequently +placed the wrong interpretation on what I saw and heard, especially in +the Balkans; and, in those cases where I have rashly ventured to indulge +in prophecy, it is more than likely that future events will show that as +a prophet I am not an unqualified success. In spite of these +shortcomings, however, I would like my readers to believe that I have +made a conscientious effort to place before them, in the following +pages, a plain and unprejudiced account of how the essays in map-making +of the lawyer, the doctor and the college professor in Paris have +affected the peoples, problems and politics of that vast region which +stretches from the Alps to the Ægean. + +The Queen of the Adriatic never looked more radiantly beautiful than on +the July morning when, from the landing-stage in front of the Danieli, +we boarded the _vapore_ which, after an hour's steaming up the teeming +Guidecca and across the outlying lagoons, set us down at the road-head, +on the mainland, where young Captain Tron, of the Comando Supremo, was +awaiting us with a big gray staff-car. Captain Tron, who had been born +on the Riviera and spoke English like an Oxonian, had been aide-de-camp +to the Prince of Wales during that young gentleman's prolonged stay on +the Italian front. He was selected by the Italian High Command to +accompany us, I imagine, because of his ability to give intelligent +answers to every conceivable sort of question, his tact, and his +unfailing discretion. His chief weakness was his proclivity for +road-burning, in which he was enthusiastically abetted by our Sicilian +chauffeur, who, before attaining to the dignity of driving a staff-car, +had spent an apprenticeship of two years in piloting ammunition-laden +_camions_ over the narrow and perilous roads which led to the positions +held by the Alpini amid the higher peaks, during which he learned to +save his tires and his brake-linings by taking on two wheels instead of +four the hairpin mountain turns. Now I am perfectly willing to travel as +fast as any one, if necessity demands it, but to tear through a region +as beautiful as Venetia at sixty miles an hour, with the incomparable +landscape whirling past in a confused blur, like a motion-picture film +which is being run too fast because the operator is in a hurry to get +home, seems to me as unintelligent as it is unnecessary. Like all +Italian drivers, moreover, our chauffeur insisted on keeping his cut-out +wide open, thereby producing a racket like a machine-gun, which, though +it gave warning of our approach when we were still a mile away, made any +attempt at conversation, save by shouting, out of the question. + +Because I wished to follow Italy's new frontiers from their very +beginning, at that point where the boundaries of Italy, Austria and +Switzerland meet near the Stelvio Pass, our course from Venice lay +northwestward, across the dusty plains of Venetia, shimmering in the +summer heat, the low, pleasant-looking villas of white or pink or +sometimes pale blue stucco, set far back in blazing gardens, peering +coyly out at us from between the ranks of stately cypresses which lined +the highway, like daintily-gowned girls seeking an excuse for a +flirtation. Dotting the Venetian plain are many quaint and charming +towns of whose existence the tourist, traveling by train, never dreams, +their massive walls, sometimes defended by moats and draw-bridges, +bearing mute witness to this region's stormy and romantic past. Towering +above the red-tiled roofs of each of these Venetian plain-towns is its +slender campanile, and, as each campanile is of distinctive design, it +serves as a landmark by which the town can be identified from afar. +Through the narrow, cobble-paved streets of Vicenza we swept, between +rows of shops opening into cool, dim, vaulted porticoes, where the +townspeople can lounge and stroll and gossip without exposing themselves +to rain or sun; through Rovereto, noted for its silk-culture and for its +old, old houses, superb examples of the domestic architecture of the +Middle Ages, with faded frescoes on their quaint façades; and so up the +rather monotonous and uninteresting valley of the Adige until, just as +the sun was sinking behind the Adamello, whose snowy flanks were bathed +in the rosy _Alpenglow_, we came roaring into Trent, the capital and +center of the Trentino, which, together with Trieste and its adjacent +territory, composed the regions commonly referred to by Italians before +the war as _Italia Irredenta_--Unredeemed Italy. + +Rooms had been reserved for us at the Hotel Trento, a famous tourist +hostelry in pre-war days, which had been used as headquarters by the +field-marshal commanding the Austrian forces in the Trentino, signs of +its military occupation being visible in the scratched wood-work and +ruined upholstery. The spurs of the Austrian staff officers on duty in +Trent, as Major Rupert Hughes once remarked of the American staff +officers on duty in Washington, must have been dripping with furniture +polish. + +Trent--or Trento, as its new owners call it--is a place of some 30,000 +inhabitants, built on both banks of the Adige, in the center of a great +bowl-shaped valley which is completely hemmed in by towering mountain +walls. In the church of Santa Maria Maggiore the celebrated Council of +Trent sat in the middle of the sixteenth century for nearly a decade. On +the eastern side of the town rises the imposing Castello del Buon +Consiglio, once the residence of the Prince-Bishops but now a barracks +for Italian soldiery. + +No one who knows Trent can question the justice of Italy's claims to the +city and to the rich valleys surrounding it, for the history, the +traditions, the language, the architecture and the art of this region +are as characteristically Italian as though it had never been outside +the confines of the kingdom. The system of mild and fertile Alpine +valleys which compose the so-called Trentino have an area of about 4,000 +square miles and support a population of 380,000 inhabitants, of whom +375,000, according to a census made by the Austrians themselves, are +Italian. An enclave between Lombardy and Venetia, a rough triangle with +its southern apex at the head of the Lake of Garda, the Trentino, +originally settled by Italian colonists who went forth as early as the +time of the Roman Republic, was for centuries an independent Italian +prince-bishopric, being arbitrarily annexed to Austria upon the fall of +Napoleon. In spite of the tyrannical and oppressive measures pursued by +the Austrian authorities in their attempts to stamp out the affection of +the Trentini for their Italian motherland, in spite of the systematic +attempts to Germanicize the region, in spite of the fact that it was an +offense punishable by imprisonment to wear the Italian colors, to sing +the Italian national hymn, or to have certain Italian books in their +possession, the poor peasants of these mountain valleys remained +unswervingly loyal to Italy throughout a century of persecution. Little +did the thousands of American and British tourists who were wont to make +of the Trentino a summer playground, climbing its mountains, fishing in +its rivers, motoring over its superb highways, stopping in its great +hotels, realize the silent but desperate struggle which was in progress +between this handful of Italian exiles and the empire of the Hapsburgs. + +The attitude of the Austrian authorities toward their unwilling subjects +of the Trentino was characterized by a vindictiveness as savage as it +was shortsighted. Like the Germans in Alsace, they made the mistake of +thinking that they could secure the loyalty of the people by awing and +terrorizing them, whereas these methods had the effect of hardening the +determination of the Trentini to rid themselves of Austrian rule. Cæsare +Battisti was deputy from Trent to the parliament in Vienna. When war was +declared he escaped from Austria and enlisted in the Italian army, +precisely as hundreds of American colonists joined the Continental Army +upon the outbreak of the Revolution. During the first Austrian offensive +he was captured and sentenced to death, being executed while still +suffering from his wounds. The fact that the rope parted twice beneath +his weight added the final touch to the brutality which marked every +stage of the proceeding. The execution of Battista provided a striking +object-lesson for the inhabitants of the Trentino and of Italy--but not +the sort of object-lesson which the Austrians had intended. Instead of +terrifying them, it but fired them in their determination to end that +sort of thing forever. From Lombardy to Sicily Battista was acclaimed a +hero and a martyr; photographs of him on his way to execution--an erect +and dignified figure, a dramatic contrast to the shambling, sullen-faced +soldiery who surrounded him--were displayed in every shop-window in the +kingdom; all over Italy streets and parks and schools were named to +perpetuate his memory. + +Had there been in my mind a shadow of doubt as to the justice of Italy's +annexation of the Trentino, it would have been dissipated when, after +dinner, we stood on the balcony of the hotel in the moonlight, looking +down on the great crowd which filled to overflowing the brilliantly +lighted piazza. A military band was playing _Garibaldi's Hymn_ and the +people stood in silence, as in a church, the faces of many of them wet +with tears, while the familiar strains, forbidden by the Austrian under +penalty of imprisonment, rose triumphantly on the evening air to be +echoed by the encircling mountains. At last the exiles had come home. +And from his marble pedestal, high above the multitude, the great statue +of Dante looked serenely out across the valleys and the mountains which +are "unredeemed" no longer. + +[Illustration: HIS FIRST SIGHT OF THE TERRA IRRIDENTA + +King Victor Emanuel arriving at Trieste on a destroyer after its +occupation by the Italians] + +Though Italy's original claims in this region, as made at the +beginning of the war, included only the so-called Trentino (by which is +generally meant those Italian-speaking districts which used to belong to +the bishopric of Trent) together with those parts of South Tyrol which +are in population overwhelmingly Italian, she has since demanded, and by +the Peace Conference has been awarded, the territory known as the upper +Adige, which comprises all the districts lying within the basin of the +Adige and of its tributary, the Isarco, including the cities of Botzen +and Meran. By the annexation of this region Italy has pushed her +frontier as far north as the Brenner, thereby bringing within her +borders upwards of 180,000 German-speaking Tyrolese who have never been +Italian in any sense and who bitterly resent being transferred, without +their consent and without a plebiscite, to Italian rule. + +The Italians defend their annexation of the Upper Adige by asserting +that Italy's true northern boundary, in the words of Eugène de +Beauharnais, written, when Viceroy of Italy, to his stepfather, +Napoleon, "is that traced by Nature on the summits of the mountains, +where the waters that flow into the Black Sea are divided from those +that flow into the Adriatic." Viewed from a purely geographical +standpoint, Italy's contention that the great semi-circular barrier of +the Alps forms a natural and clearly defined frontier, separating her by +a clean-cut line from the countries to the north, is unquestionably a +sound one. Any one who has entered Italy from the north must have +instinctively felt, as he reached the summit of this mighty mountain +wall and looked down on the warm and fertile slopes sweeping southward +to the plains, "Here Italy begins." + +Italy further justifies her annexation of the German-speaking Upper +Adige on the ground of national security. She must, she insists, possess +henceforward a strong and easily defended northern frontier. She is +tired of crouching in the valleys while her enemies dominate her from +the mountain-tops. Nor do I blame her. Her whole history is punctuated +by raids and invasions launched from these northern heights. But the new +frontier, in the words of former Premier Orlando, "can be defended by a +handful of men, while therefore the defense of the Trentino salient +required half the Italian forces, the other half being constantly +threatened with envelopment." + +As I have already pointed out, the annexation of the Upper Adige means +the passing of 180,000 German-speaking Austrians under Italian +sovereignty, including the cities of Botzen and Meran; the ancient +centers of German-Alpine culture, Brixen and Sterzing; of Schloss Tyrol, +which gives the whole country its name; and, above all, of the Parsier +valley, the home of Andreas Hofer, whose life and living memory provide +the same inspiration for the Germans of Tyrol that the exploits and +traditions of Garibaldi do for the Italians. + +That Italy is not insensible to the perils of bringing within her +borders a _bloc_ of people who are not and never will be Italian, is +clearly shown by the following extract from an Italian official +publication: + +"In claiming the Upper Adige, Italy does not forget that the highest +valleys are inhabited by 180,000 Germans, a residuum from the +immigration in the Middle Ages. It is not a problem to be taken +light-heartedly, but it is impossible for Italy to limit herself only to +the Trentino, as that would not give her a satisfactory military +frontier. From that point of view, the basin of Bolzano (Bozen) is as +strictly necessary to Italy as the Rhine is to France." + +No one has been more zealous in the cause of Italy than I have been; no +one has been more whole-heartedly with the Italians in their splendid +efforts to recover the lands to which they are justly entitled; no one +more thoroughly realizes the agonies of apprehension which Italy has +suffered from the insecurity of her northern borders, or has been more +keenly alive to the grim but silent struggle which has been waged +between her statesmen and her soldiers as to whether the broad +statesmanship which aims at international good-feeling and abstract +justice, or the narrower and more selfish policy dictated by military +necessity, should govern the delimitation of her new frontiers. But, +because I am a friend of Italy, and because I wish her well, I view with +grave misgivings the wisdom of thus creating, within her own borders, a +new _terra irredenta_; I question the quality of statesmanship which +insists on including within the Italian body politic an alien and +irreconcilable minority which will probably always be a latent source of +trouble, one which may, as the result of some unforseen irritation, +break into an open sore. It would seem to me that Italy, in annexing the +Upper Adige, is storing up for herself precisely the same troubles which +Austria did when she held against their will the Italians of the +Trentino, or as Germany did when, in order to give herself a strategic +frontier, she annexed Alsace and Lorraine. When Italy puts forward the +argument that she must hold everything up to the Brenner because of her +fear of invasion by the puny and bankrupt little state which is all that +is left of the Austrian Empire, she is but weakening her case. Her +soundest excuse for the annexation of this region lies in her fear that +a reconstituted and revengeful Germany might some day use the Tyrol as a +gateway through which to launch new armies of invasion and conquest. +But, no matter what her friends may think of the wisdom or justice of +Italy's course, her annexation of the Upper Adige is a _fait accompli_ +which is not likely to be undone. Whether it will prove an act of wisdom +or of shortsightedness only the future can tell. + +The transition from the Italian Trentino to the German Tyrol begins a +few miles south of Bozen. Perhaps "occurs" would be a more descriptive +word, for the change from the Latin to the Teutonic, instead of being +gradual, as one would expect, is almost startling in its abruptness. In +the space of a single mile or so the language of the inhabitants changes +from the liquid accents of the Latin to the deep-throated gutturals of +the German; the road signs and those on the shops are now printed in +quaint German script; _via_ becomes _weg_, _strada_ becomes _strasse_, +instead of responding to your salutation with a smiling "_Bon giorno_" +the peasants give you a solemn "_Guten morgen_." Even the architecture +changes, the slender, four-square campaniles surmounted by bulging +Byzantine domes, so characteristic of the Trentino, giving place to +pointed steeples faced with colored slates or tiles. On the German side +the towns are better kept, the houses better built, the streets wider +and cleaner than in the Italian districts. Instead of the low, +white-walled, red-tiled dwellings so characteristic of Italy, the houses +begin to assume the aspect of Alpine chalets, with carved wooden +balconies and steep-pitched roofs to prevent the settling of the winter +snows. The plastered façades of many of the houses are decorated with +gaudily colored frescoes, nearly always of Biblical characters or +scenes, so that in a score of miles the traveler has had the whole story +of the Scriptures spread before him. They are a deeply religious people, +these Tyrolean peasants, as is evidenced not only by the many handsome +churches and the character of the wall-paintings on the houses, but by +the amazing frequency of the wayside shrines, most of which consist of +representations of various phases of the Crucifixion, usually carved and +painted with a most harrowing fidelity of detail. Occasionally we +encountered groups of peasants wearing the picturesque velvet jackets, +tight knee-breeches, heavy woolen stockings and beribboned hats which +one usually associates with the Tyrolean yodelers who still inflict +themselves on vaudeville audiences in the United States. As we sped +northward the landscape changed with the inhabitants, the sunny Italian +countryside, ablaze with flowers and green with vineyards, giving way to +solemn forests, gloomy defiles, and crags surmounted by grim, gray +castles which reminded me of the stage-settings for "Tannhäuser" and +"Lohengrin." + +Seen from the summit of the Mendel Pass, the road from Trent to Bozen +looks like a lariat thrown carelessly upon the ground. It climbs +laboriously upward, through splendid evergreen forests, in countless +curves and spirals, loiters for a few-score yards beside the margin of a +tiny crystal lake, and then, refreshed, plunges downward, in a series of +steep white zigzags, to meet the Isarco, in whose company it enters +Bozen. Because the car, like ourselves, was thirsty, we stopped at the +summit of the pass at the tiny hamlet of Madonna di Campiglio--Our Lady +of the Fields--for water and for tea. Should you have occasion to go +that way, I hope that you will take time to stop at the unpretentious +little Hotel Neumann. It is the sort of Tyrolean inn which had, I +supposed, gone out of existence with the war. The innkeeper, a jovial, +white-whiskered fellow, such as one rarely finds off the musical comedy +stage, served us with tea--with rum in it--and hot bread with honey, and +heaping dishes of small wild strawberries, and those pastries which the +Viennese used to make in such perfection. There were five of us, +including the chauffeur and the orderly, and for the food which we +consumed I think that the innkeeper charged the equivalent of a dollar. +But, as he explained apologetically, the war had raised prices terribly. +We were the first visitors, it seemed, barring Austrians and a few +Italian officers, who had visited his inn in nearly five years. Both of +his sons had been killed in the war, he told us, fighting bravely with +their Jaeger battalion. The widow of one of his sons--I saw her; a +sweet-faced Austrian girl--with her child, had come to live with him, he +said. Yes, he was an old man, both of his boys were dead, his little +business had been wrecked, the old Emperor Franz-Joseph--yes, we could +see his picture over the fireplace within--had gone and the new Emperor +Karl was in exile, in Switzerland, life had heard; even the Empire in +which he had lived, boy and man, for seventy-odd years, had disappeared; +the whole world was, indeed, turned upside down--but, Heaven be praised, +he had a little grandson who would grow up to carry the business on. + +[Illustration: A LITTLE MOTHER OF THE TYROL + +We gave her some candy: it was the first taste of sugar that she had had +in four years] + +[Illustration: THE END OF THE DAY + +A Tyrolean peasant woman returning from the fields] + +"How do you feel," I asked the old man, "about Italian rule?" + +"They are not our own people," he answered slowly. "Their language is +not our language and their ways are not our ways. But they are not an +unkind nor an unjust people and I think that they mean to treat us +fairly and well. Austria is very poor, I hear, and could do nothing for +us if she would. But Italy is young and strong and rich and the officers +who have stopped here tell me that she is prepared to do much to help +us. Who knows? Perhaps it is all for the best." + +Immediately beyond Madonna di Campiglio the highway begins its descent +from the pass in a series of appallingly sharp turns. Hardly had we +settled ourselves in the tonneau before the Sicilian, impatient to be +gone, stepped on the accelerator and the big Lancia, flinging itself +over the brow of the hill, plunged headlong for the first of these +hairpin turns. "Slow up!" I shouted. "Slow up or you'll have us over the +edge!" As the driver's only response to my command was to grin at us +reassuringly over his shoulder, I looked about for a soft place to land. +But there was only rock-plated highway whizzing past and on the outside +the road dropped sheer away into nothingness. We took the first turn +with the near-side wheels in the gutter, the off-side wheels on the +bank, and the car tilted at an angle of forty-five degrees. The second +bend we navigated at an angle of sixty degrees, the off-side wheels on +the bank, the near-side wheels pawing thin air. Had there been another +bend immediately following we should have accomplished it upside down. +Fortunately there were no more for the moment, but there remained the +village street of Cles. We pounced upon it like a tiger on its prey. +Shrilling, roaring and honking, we swooped through the ancient town, +zigzagging from curb to curb. The great-great-grandam of the village was +tottering across the street when the blast of the Lancia's siren pierced +the deafness of a century and she sprang for the sidewalk with the +agility of a young gazelle. We missed her by half an inch, but at the +next corner we had better luck and killed a chicken. + +Meran--the Italians have changed its official name to Merano, just as +they have changed Trent to Trento, and Bozen to Bolzano--has always +appealed to me as one of the most charming and restful little towns in +Europe. The last time I had been there, before the war-cloud darkened +the land, its streets were lined with powerful touring cars bearing the +license-plates of half the countries in Europe, bands played in the +parks, the shady promenade beside the river was crowded with +pleasure-seekers, and its great tourist hostelries--there were said to +be upwards of 150 hotels and _pensions_ in the town--were gay with +laughter and music. But this time all was changed. Most of the large +hotels were closed, the streets were deserted, the place was as dismal +as a cemetery. It reminded me of a beautiful house which has been closed +because of its owner's financial reverses, the servants discharged, the +windows boarded up, the furniture swathed in linen covers, the carpets +and hangings packed away in mothballs, and the gardens overrun with +weeds. At the Hotel Savoy, where rooms had been reserved for us, it was +necessary, in pre-war days, to wire for accommodations a fortnight in +advance of your arrival, and even then you were not always able to get +rooms. Yet we were the only visitors, barring a handful of Italian +commercial travelers and the Italian governor-general and his staff. The +proprietor, an Austrian, told me that in the four years of war he had +lost $300,000, and that he, like his colleagues, was running his hotel +on borrowed money. Of the pre-war visitors to Meran, eighty per cent. +had been Germans, he told me, adding that he could see no prospect of +the town's regaining its former prosperity until Germany is on her +financial feet again. Personally, I think that he and the other +hoteliers and business men with whom I talked in Meran were rather more +pessimistic than the situation warranted, for, if Italy will have the +foresight to do for these new playgrounds of hers in the Alps even a +fraction of what she has done for her resorts on the Riviera, and in +Sicily, and along the Neapolitan littoral, if she will advertise and +encourage and assist them, if she will maintain their superb roads and +improve their railway communications, then I believe that a few years, a +very few, will see them thronged by even greater crowds of visitors than +before the war. And the fact that in the future there will be more +American, English, French and Italian visitors, and fewer Germans, will +make South Tyrol a far pleasanter place to travel in. + +The Italians are fully alive to the gravity of the problems which +confront them in attempting to assimilate a body of people, as +courageous, as sturdily independent, and as tenacious of their +traditional independence as these Tyrolean mountaineers--descendants of +those peasants, remember, who, led by Andreas Hofer, successfully defied +the dictates of Napoleon. Though I think that she is going about the +business of assimilating these unwilling subjects with tact and common +sense, I do not envy Italy her task. Generally speaking, the sympathy of +the world is always with a weak people as opposed to a strong one, as +England discovered when she attempted to impose her rule upon the Boers. +Once let the Italian administration of the Upper Adige permit itself to +be provoked into undue harshness (and there will be ample provocation; +be certain of that); once let an impatient and over-zealous +governor-general attempt to bend these stubborn mountaineers too +abruptly to his will; let the local Italian officials provide the +slightest excuse for charges of injustice or oppression, and Italy will +have on her hands in Tyrol far graver troubles than those brought on by +her adventure in Tripolitania. + +Though the Government has announced that Italian must become the +official language of the newly acquired region, and that used in its +schools, no attempt will be made to root out the German tongue or to +tamper with the local usages and customs. The upper valleys, where +German is spoken, will not, however, enjoy any form of local autonomy +which would tend to set their inhabitants apart from those of the lower +valleys, for it is realized that such differential treatment would only +serve to retard the process of unification. All of the new districts, +German and Italian-speaking alike, will be included in the new province +of Trent. It is entirely probable that Italy's German-speaking subjects +of the present generation will prove, if not actually irreconcilable, at +least mistrustful and resentful, but, by adhering to a policy of +patience, sympathy, generosity and tact, I can see no reason why the +next generation of these mountaineers should not prove as loyal Italians +as though their fathers had been born under the cross of the House of +Savoy instead of under the double-eagle of the Hapsburgs. + +We crossed the Line of the Armistice into Austria an hour or so beyond +Meran, the road being barred at this point by a swinging beam, made +from the trunk of a tree, which could be swung aside to permit the +passage of vehicles, like the bar of an old-fashioned country toll-gate. +Close by was a rude shelter, built of logs, which provided sleeping +quarters for the half-company of infantry engaged in guarding the pass. +One has only to cross the new frontier to understand why Italy was so +desperately insistent on a strategic rectification of her northern +boundary, for whereas, before the war, the frontier ran through the +valleys, leaving the Austrians atop the mountain wall, it is now the +Italians who are astride the wall, with the Austrians in the valleys +below. + +[Illustration: ITALY'S NEW FRONTIER + +A sharp turn on the highroad over the Brenner Pass] + +No sooner had we crossed the Line of the Armistice than we noticed an +abrupt change in the attitude of the population. Even in the +German-speaking districts of the Trentino the inhabitants with whom we +had come in contact had been courteous and respectful, though whether +this was because of, or in spite of, the fact that we were traveling in +a military car, accompanied by a staff-officer, I do not know. Now that +we were actually in Austria, however, this atmosphere of seeming +friendliness entirely disappeared, the men staring insolently at us +from under scowling brows, while the women and children, who had less to +fear and consequently were bolder in expressing their feelings, +frequently shouted uncomplimentary epithets at us or shook their fists +as we passed. + +Under the terms of the Armistice, Innsbruck, the capital of Tyrol, was +temporarily occupied by the Italians, who sent into the city a +comparatively small force, consisting in the main of Alpini and +Bersaglieri. Innsbruck was one of the proudest cities of the Austrian +Empire, its inhabitants being noted for their loyalty to the Hapsburgs, +yet I did not observe the slightest sign of resentment toward the +Italian soldiers, who strolled the streets and made purchases in the +shops as unconcernedly as though they were in Milan or Rome. The +Italians, on their part, showed the most marked consideration for the +sensibilities of the population, displaying none of the hatred and +contempt for their former enemies which characterized the French armies +of occupation on the Rhine. + +We found that rooms had been reserved for us at the Tyroler Hof, before +the war one of the famous tourist hostelries of Europe, half of which +had been taken over by the Italian general commanding in the Innsbruck +district and his staff. Food was desperately scarce in Innsbruck when we +were there and, had it not been for the courtesy of the Italian +commander in sending us in dishes from his mess, we would have had great +difficulty in getting enough to eat. A typical dinner at the Tyroler Hof +in the summer of 1919 consisted of a mud-colored, nauseous-looking +liquid which was by courtesy called soup, a piece of fish perhaps four +times the size of a postage-stamp, a stew which was alleged to consist +of rabbit and vegetables but which, from its taste and appearance, might +contain almost anything, a salad made of beets or watercress, but +without oil, and for dessert a dish of wild berries, which are abundant +in parts of Tyrol. There was an extra charge for a small cup of black +coffee, so-called, which was made, I imagine, from acorns. This, of +course, was at the best and highest-priced hotels in Innsbruck; at the +smaller hotels the food was correspondingly scarcer and poorer. + +Though the inhabitants of the rural districts appeared to be moderately +well fed, a majority of the people of Innsbruck were manifestly in +urgent need of food. Some of them, indeed, were in a truly pitiable +condition, with emaciated bodies, sunken cheeks, unhealthy complexions, +and shabby, badly worn clothes. The meager displays in the shop-windows +were a pathetic contrast to variety and abundance which characterized +them in ante-bellum days, the only articles displayed in any profusion +being picture-postcards, objects carved from wood and similar souvenirs. +The windows of the confectionery and bake-shops were particularly +noticeable for the paucity of their contents. I was induced to enter one +of them by a brave window display of hand-decorated candy boxes, but, +upon investigation, it proved that the boxes were empty and that the +shop had had no candy for four years. The prices of necessities, such as +food and clothing, were fantastic (I saw advertisements of stout, +all-leather boots for rent to responsible persons by the day or week), +but articles of a purely luxurious character could be had for almost +anything one was willing to offer. In one shop I was shown German +field-glasses of high magnification and the finest makes for ten and +fifteen dollars a pair. The local jewelers were driving a brisk trade +with the Italian soldiers, who were lavish purchasers of Austrian war +medals and decorations. Captain Tron bought an Iron Cross of the second +class for the equivalent of thirty cents. + +We left Innsbruck in the early morning with the intention of spending +that night at Cortina d'Ampezzo, but, owing to our unfamiliarity with +the roads and to delays due to tire trouble, nightfall found us lost in +the Dolomites. For mile after mile we pushed on through the darkness +along the narrow, slippery mountain roads, searching for a shelter in +which to pass the night. Occasionally the twin beams from our lamps +would illumine a building beside the road and we, chilled and hungry, +would exclaim "A house at last!" only to find, upon drawing nearer, +that, though it had evidently been once a habitation, it was now but a +shattered, blackened shell, a grim testimonial to the accuracy of +Austrian and Italian gunners. It was late in the evening and bitterly +cold, before, rounding a shoulder of the mountain up whose steep +gradients the car seemed to have been panting for ages, we saw in the +distance the welcome lights of the hamlet of Santa Lucia. + +I do not think that the public has the slightest conception of the +widespread destruction and misery wrought by the war in these Alpine +regions. In nearly a hundred miles of motoring in the Cadore, formerly +one of the most delightful summer playgrounds in all Europe, we did not +pass a single building with a whole roof or an unshattered wall. The +hospitable wayside inns, the quaint villages, the picturesque peasant +cottages which the tourist in this region knew and loved are but +blackened ruins now. And the people are gone too--refugees, no doubt, in +the camps which the Government has erected for them near the larger +towns. One no longer hears the tinkle of cow-bells on the mountain +slopes, peasants no longer wave a friendly greeting from their doors: it +is a stricken and deserted land. But Cortina d'Ampezzo, which is the +_cheflieu_ of the Cadore, though still showing many traces of the +shell-storms which it has survived, was quickening into life. The big +tourist hotels at either end of the town, behind which the Italians +emplaced their heavy guns, were being refurnished in anticipation of the +resumption of summer travel and the little shops where they sell +souvenirs were reopening, one by one. But the losses suffered by the +inhabitants of these Alpine valleys, desperately serious as they are to +them, are, after all, but insignificant when compared with the enormous +havoc wrought by the armies in the thickly settled Friuli and on the +rich Venetian plains. Every one knows, presumably, that Italy had to +draw more heavily upon her resources than any other country among the +Allies _(did you know that she spent in the war more than four-fifths of +her total national wealth?_) and that she is bowed down under an +enormous load of taxation and a staggering burden of debt. But what has +been largely overlooked is that she is faced by the necessity of +rebuilding a vast devastated area, in which the conditions are quite as +serious, the need of assistance fully as urgent, as in the devastated +regions of Belgium and France. + +Probably you were not aware that a territory of some three and a half +million acres, occupied by nearly a million and a half people, was +overrun by the Austrians. More than one-half of Venetia is comprised in +that region lying east of the Piave where the wave of Hunnish invasion +broke with its greatest fury. The whole of Udine and Belluno, and parts +of Treviso, Vicenza and Venice suffered the penalty of standing in the +path of the Hun. They were prosperous provinces, agriculturally and +industrially, but now both industry and agriculture are almost at a +standstill, for their factories have been burned, their machinery +wrecked or stolen, their livestock driven off and their vineyards +destroyed. The damage done is estimated at 500 million dollars. It is +unnecessary for me to emphasize the seriousness of the problem which +thus confronts the Italian Government. Not only must it provide food and +shelter for the homeless--a problem which it has solved by the erection +of great numbers of wooden huts somewhat similar to the barracks at the +American cantonments--but a great amount of livestock and machinery must +be supplied before industry can be resumed. At one period there was such +desperate need of fuel that even the olive trees, one of the region's +chief sources of revenue, were sacrificed. The Italians have set about +the task of regeneration with an energy that discouragement cannot +check. But the undertaking is more than Italy can accomplish unaided, +for the resources of her other provinces are seriously depleted. We are +fond of talking of the debt we owe to Italy, not merely for her +sacrifices in the war, but for all that she has given us in art and +music and literature. Now is the time to show our gratitude. + +From Cortina, which is Italian now, we swung toward the north again, +re-crossed the Line of the Armistice at Tarvis, and, just as night was +falling, came tearing into Villach, which, like Innsbruck, was occupied, +under the terms of the Armistice, by Italian troops. We had great +difficulty in obtaining rooms in Villach, not because there were no +rooms but because we were accompanied by an Italian officer and were +traveling in an Italian car. The proprietors of five hotels, upon seeing +Captain Tron's uniform, curtly declared that every room was occupied. It +was nearly midnight before we succeeded in finding shelter for the +night, and this was obtained only when I made it amply clear to the +Austrian proprietor of the only remaining hotel in the town that we were +not Italians but Americans. The unpleasant impression produced by the +coolness of our reception in Villach was materially increased the +following morning, when Captain Tron greeted us with the news that all +of our luggage, which we had left on the car, had been stolen. It +seemed that thieves had broken into the courtyard of the barracks, where +the car had been locked up for the night, and, in spite of the fact that +the chauffeur was asleep in the tonneau, had stripped it of everything, +including the spare tires. I learned afterwards that robberies of this +sort had become so common since the war as scarcely to provoke comment, +portions of Austria being terrorized by gangs of demobilized soldiers +who, taking advantage of the complete demoralization of the machinery of +government, robbed farmhouses and plundered travelers at will. It is +much the same form of lawlessness, I imagine, which manifested itself +immediately after the close of the Napoleonic Wars, when bands of +discharged soldiers sought in robbery the excitement and booty which +they had formerly found under the eagles. Though the local police +authorities attempted to condone the robbery on the ground that it was +due to the appalling poverty of the population, this excuse did not +reconcile my wife to the loss of her entire wardrobe. As she remarked +vindictively, she felt certain that the inhabitants of Villach were +called Villains. + +I wished to visit Klagenfurt, the ancient capital of Carinthia, which is +about twenty miles beyond Villach, because at that time the town, which +is a railway junction of considerable strategic and commercial +importance, threatened to provide the cause for an open break between +the Jugoslavs and the Italians. Though the Italians did not demand the +town for themselves, they had vigorously insisted that, instead of being +awarded to Jugoslavia, it should remain Austrian, for, with the triangle +of which Klagenfurt is the center in the possession of the Jugoslavs, +they would have driven a wedge between Italy and Austria and would have +had under their control the immensely important junction-point where the +main trunk line from Venice to Vienna is joined by the line coming up +from Fiume and Trieste. The Jugoslavs, recognizing that the possession +of Klagenfurt would give them virtual control of the principal railway +entering Austria from the south, and that such control would probably +enable them to divert much of Austria's traffic from the Italian ports +of Venice and Trieste to their own port of Fiume, which they +confidently expected would be awarded them by the Peace Conference, lost +no time in occupying the town with a considerable force of troops. They +further justified this occupation by asserting that Jugoslavia was +entitled to Carinthia on ethnological grounds and that the inhabitants +of Klagenfurt were clamoring for Jugoslav rule. In view of these +developments, I had expected to find Jugoslav soldiery in the town, but +I had not expected to be challenged, a mile or so outside the town, by a +sentry who was, judging from his appearance, straight from a _comitadji_ +band in the Macedonian mountains. He was a sullen-faced fellow wearing a +fur cap and a nondescript uniform, with an assortment of weapons thrust +in his belt, according to the custom of the Balkan guerrillas, and with +two bandoliers, stuffed with cartridges, slung across his chest. He was +as incongruous a figure in that pleasant German countryside as one of +Pancho Villa's bandits would have been in the Connecticut Valley. And +Klagenfurt, which is a well-built, well-paved, thoroughly modern +Austrian town, was occupied by several hundred of his fellows, brought +from somewhere in the Balkans, I should imagine, for the express +purpose of aweing the population. It was perfectly apparent that the +inhabitants, far from welcoming these fierce-looking fighters as +brother-Slavs and friends, were only too anxious to have them take their +departure, having about as much in common with them, in appearance, +manners and speech, as a New Englander has with an Apache Indian. So +great was the tension existing in Klagenfurt that a commission had been +sent by the Peace Conference to study the question on the spot, its +members communicating with the Supreme Council in Paris by means of +American couriers, slim young fellows in khaki who wore on their arms +the blue brassard, embroidered with the scales of justice, which was the +badge of messengers employed by the Peace Commission. + +A few miles outside of Klagenfurt my attention was attracted by an iron +paling, in a field beside the road, enclosing a gigantic chair carved +from stone. My curiosity aroused, I stopped the car to examine it. From +a faded inscription attached to the gate I learned that this was the +crowning chair of the Dukes of Carinthia, in which the ancient rulers of +this region had sat to be crowned. There it stands in a field beside +the highway, neglected and forgotten, a curious link with a picturesque +and far-distant past. + +Our route from Klagenfurt led back through Villach to Tarvis and thence +over the Predil Pass to the Friuli plain and Udine, a journey which we +expected to accomplish in a single day; but there were delays in +re-crossing the Line of the Armistice and other and more serious delays +in the mountains, caused by torrential rains which had in places washed +out the road, so that it was already nightfall when, emerging from the +gloomy defile of the Predil Pass, we saw before us the twinkling lights +of the Alpini cantonment at Caporetto, that mountain hamlet of black +memories where, in the summer of 1917, the Austro-German armies, aided +by bad Italian generalship and Italian treachery, smashed through the +Italian lines and forced them back in a headlong retreat which was +checked only by the heroic stand on the Piave. The Caporetto disaster +would have broken the hearts and annihilated the resistance of a less +courageous people than the Italians. Yet the Italian army, shattered and +disorganized as it was, stopped the triumphant progress of the +invaders; stopped it almost without artillery or ammunition, for +hundreds of guns had been abandoned during the retreat; stopped it with +the bodies of Italy's youth, the boys fresh from the training-camps, the +class of 1919, called to the colors two years before their time! They +stopped that victorious rush upon the line of the Piave, a broad, +shallow stream meandering through a flat plain with never a height to +command the enemy's positions, never a physical feature of the terrain +to satisfy the requirements of strategy. Not only was the line of the +Piave held by the Italians against the advice of their Allies, but it +was held in defiance of all the lessons taught by Italian history, for +that the Piave could not be successfully defended has been the judgment +of every military leader since first the barbarians began to sweep down +from the Alps to lay waste the rich Venetian plain. The Italians made +their heroic stand, moreover, without any help from their Allies. That +help came later, it is true, but only after the stand had been made. You +doubt this? Then read this extract from the report of General the Earl +of Caven, who commanded the Allied troops sent to the aid of the +Italians: + +"In 1917, in the terrible days which followed the disaster at Caporetto, +I saw, just after my arrival at Venice, the Italian army in full +retreat, and I became convinced that a recovery was impossible before +the arrival of sufficient reenforcement from France and England. But I +was deceived, for shortly afterward I saw the Italian army, which had +seemed to be in the advanced stages of an utter rout, form a solid line +on the Piave and hold it with miraculous persistence, permitting the +English and French reenforcements to take up the positions assigned to +them without once coming in contact with the enemy." + +I have heard it said by critics of Italy that the retreat from Caporetto +showed the lack of courage of the Italian soldier. To gauge the courage +of an army a single disaster is as unjust as it is unintelligent. Was +the rout of the Federal forces at Bull Run a criterion of their behavior +in the succeeding years of the Civil War? Was the surrender at Sedan a +true indication of the fighting ability of the French soldier? Every +nation has had its disasters and has had to live them down. Italy did +this when, on the banks of Piave, she turned her greatest disaster into +her most glorious triumph. + +Because it was my privilege to be with the Italian army in the field +during various periods of the war, and because I know at first-hand +whereof I speak, I regret and resent the disparagement of the Italian +soldier which has been so freely indulged in since the Armistice. It may +be, of course, that you do not fully realize the magnitude of Italy's +sacrifices and achievements. Did you know, for example, that Italy held +a front longer than the British, Belgian, French and American fronts put +together? Did you know that out of a population of 37 millions she put +into the field an army of 5 million men, whereas France and her +colonies, with nearly double the population, was never able to raise +more than 5,064,000, a considerable proportion of which were black and +brown men? Did you know that in forty-one months of war Italy lost +541,000 in dead and 953,000 in wounded, and that, unlike France and +England, her armies were composed wholly of white men? Did you know +that, in spite of all that has been said about the Allies giving her +assistance, Italy at all times had more troops on the Western front than +the Allies had on the Italian? Did you know that she called up the +class of 1919 two years before their time, a measure which even France, +hard-pressed as she was, did not feel justified in taking? (I have +mentioned this before, but it will bear repetition.) Have you stopped to +think that she was the only one of the Allied nations which won a +clean-cut and decisive victory, when, on the Piave, she attacked with 51 +divisions an Austro-German army of 63 divisions, completely smashed it, +forced its surrender, and captured half a million prisoners? Did you +know that she lost more than fifty-seven per cent, of her merchant +tonnage, while England lost less than forty-three per cent, and France +less than forty per cent.? And, finally, had you realized that Italy +made greater sacrifices, in proportion to her resources and population, +than any other country engaged in the war, having devoted four-fifths of +her entire national wealth to the prosecution of the struggle? There is +your answer, chapter and verse, for the next man who sneeringly remarks, +"The Italians didn't do much, did they?" + +Just as the Trentino and the Upper Adige have been added to the kingdom +as the Province of Trent, so the redeemed regions of which Trieste is +the center, including the towns of Gorizia, Monfalcone, Capodistria, +Parenzo, Pirano, Rovigno and Pola, have been consolidated in the new +province of Julian Venetia, with about a million inhabitants and an area +of approximately 6,000 square miles. + +[Illustration: THIS IS NOT VENICE, AS YOU MIGHT SUPPOSE, BUT TRIESTE + +The sails of the fishing craft are of many colors, yellow, burnt-orange, +vermilion. At the head of the canal, its stately columns reflected in +the turquoise waters, the Bourse rises like some ancient Roman temple] + +Trieste, which, with its suburbs, has a population of not far from +400,000, with its splendid terminal facilities, its vast harbor-works, +its dry-docks and foundries, its railway communications with the +hinterland, and, above all else, its position as the natural outlet for +the trade of Austria, Bavaria and Czecho-Slovakia, constitutes not only +Italy's most valuable prize of war, but, everything considered, probably +the most important city, commercially at least, to change hands as a +result of the conflict. Curiously enough, Trieste is the least +interesting city of its size, from a visitor's point of view, that I +know. Venice always reminds me of a beautiful and charmingly gowned +woman, perpetually young, interested in art, in music, in literature, +always ready for a stroll, a dance or a flirtation. Trieste, on the +contrary, is a busy, preoccupied, rather brusque business man, wholly +self-made, who has never devoted much time to devote to pleasure because +he has been too busy making his fortune. Venice says, "If you want a +good time, let me show you how to spend your money." But Trieste growls, +"If you want to get rich, let me show you how to invest your money." The +city has broad and well-kept streets bordered by the same sort of +four-and five-and six-story buildings of brick and stone which you find +in any European commercial city; it has several unusually spacious +piazzas on which front some really pretentious buildings; it has a few +arches and doorways dating from the Roman period, though far better ones +can be found in almost any town on the Italian peninsula; on the hill +commanding the city there are an old Austrian fort and an ancient +church, both chiefly interesting for the views they command of the +harbor and the coast of Istria; some of the most abominably rough +pavements which I have ever encountered in any city; one hotel which +just escapes being excellent and several which do not escape being bad; +and a harbor, together with the wharves and moles and machinery which go +with it, which is the Triestino's pride and joy. + +To my way of thinking the most interesting sight in Trieste is a small +château, built in the castellated fashion which had a considerable vogue +in America shortly after the close of the Civil War, which stands amid +most beautiful gardens on the edge of the sea, two or three miles to the +west of the city. This is the Château of Miramar, formerly the residence +of the young Austrian Archduke Maximilian, who, dazzled by the dream of +life on an imperial throne, accepted an invitation to become Emperor of +Mexico and a few years later fell before a Mexican firing-party on the +slopes of Queretaro. Though the château has now passed into the +possession of the Italian Government it is still in charge of the aged +custodian who, as a youth, was body-servant to Maximilian. Barring the +fact that the paintings and certain pieces of furniture had been removed +to Vienna to save from injury by aerial bombardment, the interior of the +château is much as Maximilian left it when he set out with his bride, +Carlotta, the sister of the late King Leopold of the Belgians, on his +ill-fated adventure. In the study on the ground floor hangs a +photograph, still sharp and clear after the lapse of half a century, of +the members of the delegation--swarthy men in the high cravats and long +frock-coats of the period, some of them wearing the stars and sashes of +orders--who came to Miramar to offer Maximilian the Mexican crown. The +old custodian told me that he witnessed the scene and he pointed out to +me where his young master and the other actors in this, the first act of +the tragedy, stood. How little could the youthful Emperor have dreamed, +as he set sail for those distant shores, that the day would come when +the Dual Monarchy would go down in ruins, when the ancient dynasty of +the Hapsburgs would come to an inglorious end, and when the garden paths +where he and his beautiful young bride used to saunter in the moonlight +would be paced by Italian carabineers. + +If you will get out the atlas and turn to the map of Italy you will +notice at the head of the Adriatic a peninsula shaped like the head of +an Indian arrow, its tip aimed toward the unprotected flank of Italy's +eastern coast. This arrow-shaped peninsula is Istria. In the western +notch of the arrowhead, toward Italy, is Trieste--terminus of the +railway to Vienna. In the opposite notch is Fiume--terminus of the +railway which runs across Croatia and Hungary to Budapest. And at the +very tip of the arrow, as though it had been ground to a deadly +sharpness, is Pola, formerly Austria's greatest naval base. Dotting the +western coast of Istria, between Trieste and Pola, are four small +towns--Parenzo, Pirano, Capodistria and Rovigno--all purely and +distinctively Italian, and, on the other side of the peninsula, the +famous resort of Abbazia, popular with wealthy Hungarians and with the +yachtsmen of all nations before the war. + +Parenzo, Pirano, Capodistria and Rovigno were all outposts of the +Venetian Republic, forming an outer line of defense against the Slav +barbarians of the interior. Everything about them speaks of Venice: the +snarling Lion of St. Mark which is carved above their gates and +surmounts the marble columns in their piazzas; their old, old +churches--the one at Parenzo was built in the sixth century, being +copied after the famous basilica at Ravenna, across the Adriatic--the +interiors of many of them adorned, like that of St. Mark's in Venice, +with superb mosaics of gold and semi-precious stones; the carved lions' +heads, _bocca del leone_, for receiving secret missives; the delicate +tracery above the doors and windows of the palazzos, and all those other +architectural features so characteristic of the City of the Doges. There +is no questioning what these Istrian coast-towns were or are. They are +as Italian to-day as when, a thousand years ago, they formed a part of +Venice's far-flung skirmish line. But penetrate even a single mile into +the interior of the peninsula and you find a wholly different race from +these Latins of the littoral, a different architecture (if architecture +can be applied to square huts built of sun-dried bricks) and a different +tongue. These people are the Croats, a hardy, industrious agricultural +people, generally illiterate, at least as I found them in Istria, and +with few of the comforts and none of the culture which characterized the +Latin communities on the coast. In short, the towns of the western coast +are undeniably Italian; the rest of the peninsula is solidly Slav. + +The interior of Istria consists, in the main, of a barren, monotonous +and peculiarly unlovely limestone plateau known as the Karst, a +continuation of that waterless and treeless ridge, called by Italians +the Carso, which stretches from Trieste northwestward to Goritzia and +beyond. With the exception of the Bukovica of Dalmatia and the lava-beds +of southern Utah, the Istrian Karst is the most utterly hopeless region, +from the standpoint of agriculture, that I know. It is dotted with many +small farmsteads, it is true, but one marvels at the courage and +patience which their peasant owners displayed in their unequal struggle +with Nature. The rocky surface is covered with a stunted, +discouraged-looking vegetation which reminded me of that clothing the +flanks of the mountains in the vicinity of the Roosevelt Dam, in +Arizona, and here and there are vast rolling moors, uninhabited by man +or animal, as desolate, mysterious and repelling as that depicted by Sir +Arthur Conan Doyle in _The Hound of the Baskervilles_. The Karst, like +the Carso, is dotted with curious depressions called _dolinas_, some of +them as much as 100 feet in depth, the floors of which, varying in +extent from a few square yards to several acres, are covered with soil +which is as rich as the surface of the surrounding plateau is worthless. +Because of the fertility of these singular depressions, and their +immunity from the cold winds which in winter sweep the surface of the +Karst, they are utilized by the peasants for growing fruits, vegetables +and, in some cases, small patches of grain, being, in effect, sunken +gardens provided by Nature as though to recompense the Istrians, in some +measure, for their discouraging struggle for existence. + +Just behind the very tip of the peninsula, on the edge of a superb +natural harbor, the entrance to which is masked by the Brioni Islands, +is the great naval base of Pola, from the shelter of whose +fortifications and mined approaches the Austrian fleet was able to +terrorize the defenseless towns along Italy's unprotected eastern +seaboard and to menace the commerce of the northern Adriatic. Pola Is a +strange mélange of the ancient and the modern, for from the topmost +tiers of the great Roman Arena--scarcely less imposing than the Coliseum +at Rome--we looked down upon a harbor dotted with the fighting monsters +of the Italian navy, while all day long Italian seaplanes swooped and +circled over the splendid arch, erected by a Roman emperor in the dim +dawn of European history, to commemorate his triumph over the +barbarians. + +It is just such anomalies as these that make almost impossible the +solution, on a basis of strict justice to the inhabitants, of the +Adriatic problem. Here you see a city that, in history, in population, +in language, is as characteristically Italian as though it were under +the shadow of the Apennines, yet encircling that city is a countryside +whose inhabitants are wholly Slav, who are intensely hostile to Italian +institutions, and many of whom have no knowledge whatsoever of the +Italian tongue. The Italians claim that Istria should be theirs because +of the undoubted Latin character of the towns along its coasts, because +their Roman and Venetian ancestors established their outposts here long +centuries ago, because the only culture that the region possesses is +Italian, and, above all else, because its possession is essential to the +safety of Italy herself. The Slavs, on the other hand, lay claim to +Istria on the ground that its first inhabitants, whether barbarians or +not, were Slavs, that the Italians who settled on its shores were but +filibusters and adventurers, and that its inhabitants, by blood, by +language, and by sentiment, are overwhelmingly Slav to-day. The only +thing on which both races agree is that the peninsula should not be +divided. It was no easy problem, you see, which the peace-makers were +expected to solve with strict justice for all. If my memory serves me +right, King Solomon was once called upon by two mothers to settle a +somewhat similar dispute, though in that case it was a child instead of +a country whose ownership was in question. So, though both Latins and +Slavs may continue to assert their rights to the peninsula in its +entirety, I imagine that the Istrian problem will eventually be settled +by the judgment of Solomon. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE BORDERLAND OF SLAV AND LATIN + + +It was the same along the entire line of the Armistice from the Brenner +down to Istria. Whenever the officials with whom we talked heard that we +were going to Fiume, they shook their heads pessimistically. "It's a +good place to stay away from just now," said one. "They won't let you +enter the city," another warned us. Or, "You mustn't think of taking the +_signora_ with you." But the representative of an American oil company +whom I met in the American consulate in Trieste regarded the excursion +from a different view-point altogether. + +"Be sure to stop at the Europa," he urged me. "It's right on the +water-front, and there isn't a better place in the city to see what's +happening. I was there last week when the mob attacked the French +Annamite troops. Believe me, friend, that was one hellish business ... +they literally cut those poor little Chinks into pieces. I saw the whole +thing from my window. I'm going back to Fiume to-morrow, and if you like +I'll tell the manager of the Europa to save you a front room." + +His tone was that of a New Yorker telling a friend from up-State that he +would reserve him a room in a Fifth Avenue hotel from which to view a +parade. + +As things turned out, however, we did not have occasion to avail +ourselves of this offer, for we found that rooms had been reserved for +us at a hotel in Abbazia, just across the bay from Fiume. This +arrangement was due to the Italian military governor, General Grazioli, +who was perfectly aware that the inhabitants of Fiume were not hanging +out any "Welcome-to-Our-City" signs for foreigners, particularly for +foreigners who were country people of President Wilson, and that the +fewer Americans there were in the town the less danger there was of +anti-American demonstrations. In view of what had happened to the +Annamites I had no overpowering desire to be the center of a similar +demonstration. Pursuant to this arrangement we slept in a great barn of +a hotel whose echoing corridors had, in happier days, been a favorite +resort of the wealth and fashion of Hungary, but whose once costly +furniture had been sadly dilapidated by the spurred boots of the +Austrian staff officers who had used it as a headquarters; in the +mornings we had our sugarless coffee and butterless war-bread on a lofty +balcony commanding a superb panorama of the Istrian coast from Icici to +Volosca and of the island-studded Bay of Quarnero, and commuted to and +from Fiume in the big gray Lancia in which we had traveled along the +line of the Armistice for upward of 2,000 miles. + +We had our first view of the Unredeemed City (though it was really not +my first view, as I had been there before the war) from a curve in the +road where it suddenly emerges from the woods of evergreen laurel above +Volosca to drop in steep white zigzags to the sea. It is superbly +situated, this ancient city over whose possession Slav and Latin are +growling at each other like dogs over a disputed bone. With its snowy +buildings spread on the slopes of a shallow amphitheater between the +sapphire waters of the Adriatic and the barren flanks of the Istrian +Karst, it suggested a lovely siren, all glistening and white, who had +emerged from the sea to lie upon the bare brown breast of a mountain +giant. + +The car, with its exhaust wide open, for your Italian driver delights in +noise, roared down the grade at express-train speed, took the hairpin +curve at the bottom on two wheels, to be brought to an abrupt halt with +an agonized squealing of brakes, our further progress being barred by a +six-inch tree-trunk which had been lowered across the road like a +barrier at an old-time country toll-gate. At one side of the road was a +picket of Italian carabinieri in field-gray uniforms, their huge cocked +hats rendered a shade less anachronistic by covers of gray linen, with +carbines slung over their shoulders, hunter fashion. On the opposite +side of the highway was a patrol of British sailors in white drill +landing-kit, their rosy, smiling faces in striking contrast to the +saturnine countenances of the Italians. (I might explain, +parenthetically, that Fiume, being in theory under the jurisdiction of +the Peace Conference, was at this time occupied by about a thousand +French troops, the same number of British, a few score American +blue-jackets, and nearly 10,000 Italians.) The sergeant in command of +the carabinieri stepped up to the car, saluted, and curtly asked for our +papers. I produced them. Among them was a pass authorizing us to go when +and where we pleased in the territory occupied by the Italian forces. It +had been given to me by the Minister of War himself, but it made about +as much impression on the sergeant as though it had been signed by +Charlie Chaplin. + +"This is good only for Italy," he said. "It will not take you across the +line of the Armistice." + +[Illustration: AT THE GATES OF FIUME + +Major Powell (second from left), Mrs. Powell, Captain Tron of the +Italian _Comando Supremo_, and the car in which they travelled 1,000 +miles] + +Thereupon I played my last trump. I produced an imposing document which +had been given me by the Italian peace delegation in Paris. It had +originally been issued by the Orlando-Sonnino cabinet, but upon the fall +of that government I had had it countersigned, before leaving Rome, by +the Nitti cabinet. It was addressed to all the military, naval, and +civil authorities of Italy, and was so flatteringly worded that it would +have satisfied St. Peter himself. But the sergeant was not in the +least impressed. He read it through deliberately, scrutinized the +official seals, examined the watermark, and then disappeared into a +sentry-box on the roadside. I could hear him talking, evidently over a +telephone. Presently he emerged and signaled to his men to raise the +barrier. "Passo," he said grudgingly, in a tone which intimated that he +was letting us enter the jealously guarded portals of Fiume against his +better judgment, the bar swung upward, the big car leaped forward like a +race-horse that feels the spur, and in another moment we were rolling +through the tree-arched, stone-paved streets of the most-talked-of city +in the world. As we sped down the Corsia Deák we passed a large hotel +which, as was quite evident, had recently been renamed, for the words +"Albergo d'Annunzio" were fresh and staring. But underneath was the +former name, which had been so imperfectly obliterated that it could +still easily be deciphered. It was "Hotel Wilson." + +To correctly visualize Fiume you must imagine a town no larger than +Atlantic City crowded upon a narrow shelf between a towering mountain +wall and the sea; a town with broad and moderately clean streets, +shaded, save in the center of the city, by double rows of stately trees +and paved with large square flagstones which make abominably rough +riding; a town with several fine thoroughfares bordered by +well-constructed four-story buildings of brick and stone; with numerous +surprisingly well-stocked shops; with miles and miles of concrete moles +and wharfs, equipped with harbor machinery of the most modern +description, and adjacent to them rows of warehouses as commodious as +the Bush Terminals in Brooklyn, and rising here and there above the +trees and the housetops, like fingers pointing to heaven, the graceful +campaniles of fine old churches, one of which, the cathedral, was +already old when the Great Navigator turned the prows of his caravels +westward from Cadiz in quest of this land we live in. + +Fiume lacks none of the conditions which make a great seaport: there is +deep water and a convenient approach, which is protected against the +ocean and against a hostile fleet by the islands of Veglia and Cherso +and against the north winds by the rocky plateau of the Karst. Yet, +despite its natural advantages and the millions which were spent in its +development by the Hungarian Government, Fiume never developed into a +port of the size and importance which the foreign commerce of Hungary +would have seemed to require, this being largely due to its unfortunate +geographical condition, for the dreary and inhospitable Karst completely +shuts the city off from the interior, the numerous tunnels and steep +gradients making rail transport by this route difficult and consequently +expensive. + +The public life of the city centers in the Piazza Adamich, a broad +square on which front numerous hotels, restaurants, and coffee-houses, +before which lounge, from midmorning until midnight, a considerable +proportion of the Italian population, sipping _café nero_, or tall +drinks concocted from sweet, bright-colored syrups, scanning the papers +and discussing, with much noise and gesticulation, the political +situation and the doings of the peace commissioners in Paris. Save only +Barcelona, Fiume has the most excitable and irritable population of any +city that I know. When we were there street disturbances were as +frequent as dog-fights used to be in Constantinople before the Turks +recognized that the best gloves are made from dogskins. As I have said, +a few days before our arrival a mob had attacked and killed in most +barbarous fashion a number of Annamite soldiers who were guarding a +French warehouse on the quay. Several prominent Fumani with whom I +talked attempted to justify the massacre on the ground that a French +sailor had torn a ribbon bearing the motto "_Italia o Morte_!" from the +breast of a woman of the town. They did not seem to regret the affair or +to realize that it is just such occurrences which lead the Peace +Conference to question the wisdom of subjecting the city's Slav minority +to that sort of rule. As a result of the tense atmosphere which +prevailed in the city, the nerves of the population were so on edge that +when my car back-fired with a series of violent explosions, the loungers +in front of a near-by café jumped as though a bomb had been thrown among +them. The patron saint of Fiume is, appropriately enough, St. Vitus. + +In discussing the question of Fiume the mistake is almost invariably +made of considering it as a single city, whereas it really consists of +two distinct communities, Fiume and Sussak, bitterly antagonistic and +differing in race, religion, language, politics, customs, and thought. +A small river, the Rieka, no wider than the Erie Canal, divides the city +into two parts, one Latin the other Slav, very much as the Rio Grande +separates the American city of El Paso from the Mexican town of Ciudad +Juarez. On the left or west bank of the river is Fiume, with +approximately 40,000 inhabitants, of whom very nearly three-fourths are +Italian. Here are the wharfs, the harbor works, the rail-head, the +municipal buildings, the hotels, and the business districts. But cross +the Rieka by the single wooden bridge which connects Fiume with Sussak +and you find yourself in a wholly different atmosphere. In a hundred +paces you pass from a city which is three-quarters Italian to a town +which is overwhelmingly Slav. There are about 4,500 people in Sussak, of +whom only one-eighth are Italian. But let it be perfectly clear that +Sussak is not Fiume. In proclaiming its annexation to Italy on the +ground of self-determination, the National Council of Fiume did not +include Sussak, which is a Croatian village in historically Croatian +territory. It will be seen, therefore, that Sussak, which is not a part +of Fiume but an entirely separate municipality, does not enter into the +question at all. As for the territory immediately adjacent to Fiume on +the north and east, it is as Slav as though it were in the heart of +Serbia. To put it briefly, Fiume is an Italian island entirely +surrounded by Slavs. + +The violent self-assertiveness of the Fumani may be attributed to the +large measure of autonomy which they have always enjoyed, Fiume's status +as a free city having been definitely established by Ferdinand I in +1530, recognized by Maria Theresa in 1776 when she proclaimed it "a +separate body annexed to the crown of Hungary," and by the Hungarian +Government finally confirmed in 1868. Louis Kossuth admitted its +extraterritorial character when he said that, even though the Magyar +tongue should be enforced elsewhere as the medium of official +communication, he considered that an exception "should be made in favor +of a maritime city whose vocation was to welcome all nations led thither +by commerce." + +Though the Italian element of the population vociferously asserts its +adherence to the slogan "_Italia o Morte_!" I am convinced that many of +the more substantial and far-seeing citizens, if they dared freely to +express their opinions, would be found to favor the restoration of the +city's ancient autonomy under the ægis of the League of Nations. The +Italians of Flume are at bottom, beneath their excitable and mercurial +temperaments, a shrewd business people who have the commercial future of +their city at heart. And they are intelligent enough to realize that, +unless there be established some stable form of government which will +propitiate the Slav minority as well as the Italian majority, the Slav +nations of the hinterland will almost certainly divert their trade, on +which Fiume's commercial importance entirely depends, to some +non-Italian port, in which event the city would inevitably retrograde to +the obscure fishing village which it was less than half a century ago. + +In order that you may have before you a clear and comprehensive picture +of this most perplexing and dangerous situation, which is so fraught +with peril for the future peace of the world, suppose that I sketch for +you, in the fewest word-strokes possible, the arguments of the rival +claimants for fair Fiume's hand. Italy's claims may be classified under +three heads: sentimental, commercial, and political. Her sentimental +claims are based on the ground that the city's population, character, +and history are overwhelmingly Italian. I have already stated that the +Italians constitute about three-fourths of the total population of +Fiume, the latest figures, as quoted in the United States Senate, giving +29,569 inhabitants to the Italians and 14,798 to the Slavs. There is no +denying that the city has a distinctively Italian atmosphere, for its +architecture is Italian, that Venetian trademark, the Lion of St. Mark, +being in evidence on several of the older buildings; the mode of outdoor +life is such as one meets in Italy; most of its stores and banks are +owned by Italians, and Italian is the prevailing tongue. The claim that +the city's history is Italian is, however, hardly borne out by history +itself, for in the sixteen centuries which have elapsed since the fall +of the Roman Empire, Fiume has been under Italian rule--that of the +republic of Venice--for just four days. + +The commercial reason underlying Italy's insistence on obtaining control +of Fiume is due to the fact that Italians are convinced that should +Fiume pass into either neutral or Jugoslav hands, it would mean the +commercial ruin of Trieste, where enormous sums of Italian money have +been invested. They assert, and with sound reasoning, that the Slavs of +the hinterland, and probably the Germans and Magyars as well, would ship +through Fiume, were it under Slav or international control, instead of +through Trieste, which is Italian. One does not need to be an economist +to realize that if Fiume could secure the trade of Jugoslavia and the +other states carved from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the commercial +supremacy of Trieste, which depends upon this same hinterland, would +quickly disappear. On the other hand, those Italians whose vision has +not been distorted by their passions clearly foresee that, should the +final disposition of Fiume prove unacceptable to the Jugoslavs, they +will almost certainly divert the trade of the interior to some Slav +port, leaving Fiume to drowse in idleness beside her moss-grown wharfs +and crumbling warehouses, dreaming dreams of her one-time prosperity. + +Italy's third reason for insisting on the cession of Fiume is political, +and, because it is based on a deep-seated and haunting fear, it is, +perhaps, the most compelling reason of all. Italy does not trust the +Jugoslavs. She cannot forget that the Austrian and Hungarian fractions +of the new Jugoslav people--in other words, the Slovenes and +Croats--were the most faithful subjects of the Dual Monarchy, fighting +for the Hapsburgs with a ferocity and determination hardly surpassed in +the war. Unlike the Poles and Czecho-Slovaks, who threw in their lot +with the Allies, the Slovenes and Croats fought, and fought desperately, +for the triumph of the Central Empires. Had these two peoples turned +against their masters early in the war, the great struggle would have +ended months, perhaps years, earlier than it did. Yet, within a few days +after the signing of the Armistice, they became Jugoslavs, and announced +that they have always been at heart friendly to the Allies. But, so the +Italians argue, their conversion has been too sudden: they have changed +their flag but not their hearts; their real allegiance is not to +Belgrade but to Berlin. The Italian attitude toward these peoples who +have so abruptly switched from enemies to allies is that of the American +soldier for the Filipino: + + "He may be a brother of William H. Taft, + But he ain't no brother of mine." + +The Italians are convinced that the three peoples who have been so +hastily welded into Jugoslavia will, as the result of internal +jealousies and dissensions, eventually disintegrate, and that, when the +break-up comes, those portions of the new state which formerly belonged +to Austria-Hungary will ally themselves with the great Teutonic or, +perhaps, Russo-Teutonic, confederation which, most students of European +affairs believe, will arise from the ruins of the Central Empires. When +that day comes the new power will look with hungering eyes toward the +rich markets which fringe the Middle Sea, and what more convenient +gateway through which to pour its merchandise--and, perhaps, its +fighting men--than Fiume in friendly hands? In order to bar forever +this, the sole gateway to the warm water still open to the Hun, the +Italians should, they maintain, be made its guardians. + +"But," you argue, "suppose Jugoslavia does _not_ break up? How can +14,000,000 Slavs seriously menace Italy's 40,000,000?" + +Ah! Now you touch the very heart of the whole matter; now you have put +your finger on the secret fear which has animated Italy throughout the +controversy over Fiume and Dalmatia. For I do not believe that it is a +reincarnated Germany which Italy dreads. It is something far more +ominous, more terrifying than that, which alarms her. For, looking +across the Adriatic, she sees the monstrous vision of a united and +aggressive Slavdom, untold millions strong, of which the Jugoslavs are +but the skirmish-line, ready to dispute not merely Italy's schemes for +the commercial mastery of the Balkans but her overlordship of that sea +which she regards as an Italian lake. + +Jugoslavia's claims to Fiume are more briefly stated. Firstly, she lays +title to it on the ground that geographically Fiume belongs to Croatia, +and that Croatia is now a part of Jugoslavia, or, to give the new +country its correct name, the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and +Slovenes. This claim is, I think, well founded, and this despite the +fact that Italy has attempted to prove, by means of innumerable +pamphlets and maps, that Fiume, being within the great semi-circular +wall formed by the Alps, is physically Italian. The Jugoslavs demand +Fiume, secondly, because, they assert, if Fiume and Sussak are +considered as a single city, that city has more Slavs than Italians, +while the population of the hinterland is almost solidly Croatian. With +the first half of this claim I cannot agree. As I have already pointed +out, Sussak is not, and never has been, a part of Fiume, and its +annexation is not demanded by the Italians. Conceding, however, for the +sake of argument, that Fiume and Sussak are parts of the same city, the +most reliable figures which I have been able to obtain show that, even +were the Slav majority in Sussak added to the Slav minority in Fiume, +the Slavs would still be able to muster barely more than a third of the +total population. By far the strongest title which the Slavs have to the +city, and the one which commands for them the greatest sympathy, is +their assertion that Fiume is the natural and, indeed, almost the only +practicable commercial outlet for Jugoslavia, and that the struggling +young state needs it desperately. In reply to this, the Italians point +out that there are numerous harbors along the Dalmatian coast which +would answer the needs of Jugoslavia as well, or almost as well, as +Fiume. Now, I am speaking from first-hand knowledge when I assert that +this is not so, for I have seen with my own eyes every harbor, or +potential harbor, on the eastern coast of the Adriatic from Istria to +Greece. As a matter of fact, the entire coast of Dalmatia would not make +up to the Jugoslavs for the loss of Fiume. The map gives no idea of the +city's importance as the southernmost point at which a standard-gauge +railway reaches the Adriatic, for the railway leading to Ragusa, to +which the Italians so repeatedly refer as providing an outlet for +Jugoslavia, is not only narrow-gauge but is in part a rack-and-pinion +mountain line. The situation is best summed up by the commander of the +American war-ship on which I dined at Spalato. + +"It is not a question of finding a good harbor for the Jugoslavs," he +said. "This coast is rich in splendid harbors. It is a question, rather, +of finding a practicable route for a standard-gauge railway over or +through the mile-high range of the Dinaric Alps, which parallel the +entire coast, shutting the coast towns off from the hinterland. Until +such a railway is built, the peoples of the interior have no means of +getting their products down to the coast save through Fiume. Italy +already has the great port of Trieste. Were she also to be awarded Fiume +she would have a strangle-hold on the trade of Jugoslavia which would +probably mean that country's commercial ruin." + +I have now given you, as fairly as I know how, the principal arguments +of the rival claimants. The Italians of Fiume, as I have already shown, +outnumber the Slavs almost three to one, and it is they who are +demanding so violently that the city should be annexed to Italy on the +ground of self-determination. But I do not believe that, because there +is an undoubted Italian majority in Fiume, the city should be awarded to +Italy. If Italy were asking only what was beyond all shadow of question +Italian, I should sympathize with her unreservedly. But to place 10,000 +Slavs under Italian rule would be as unjust and as provocative of future +trouble as to place 30,000 Italians under the rule of Belgrade. Nor is +the cession of the city itself the end of Italy's claims, for, in order +to place it beyond the range of the enemy's guns (by the "enemy" she +means her late allies, the Serbs), in order to maintain control of the +railways entering the city, and in order to bring the city actually +within her territorial borders, she desires to extend her rule over +other thousands of people who are not Italian, who do not speak the +Italian tongue, and who do not wish Italian rule. Italy has no stancher +friend than I, but neither my profound admiration for what she achieved +during the war nor my deep sympathy for the staggering losses she +suffered can blind me to the unwisdom, let us call it, of certain of her +demands. I am convinced that, when the passions aroused by the +controversy have had time to cool, the Italians will themselves question +the wisdom of accumulating for themselves future troubles by creating +new lost provinces and a new Irredenta by annexing against their will +thousands of people of an alien race. Viewing the question from the +standpoints of abstract justice, of sound politics, and of common sense, +I do not believe that Fiume should be given either to the Italians or to +the Jugoslavs, but that the interests of both, as well as the prosperity +of the Fumani themselves, should be safeguarded by making it a free +city under international control. + +No account of the extraordinary drama--farce would be a better name were +its possibilities not so tragic--which is being staged at Fiume would be +complete without some mention of the romantic figure who is playing the +part of hero or villain, according to whether your sympathies are with +the Italians or the Jugoslavs. There is nothing romantic, mind you, in +Gabriele d'Annunzio's personal appearance. On the contrary, he is one of +the most unimpressive-looking men I have ever seen. He is short of +stature--not over five feet five, I should guess--and even his +beautifully cut clothes, which fit so faultlessly about the waist and +hips as to suggest the use of stays, but partially camouflage the +corpulency of middle age. His head looks like a new-laid egg which has +been highly varnished; his pointed beard is clipped in a fashion which +reminded me of the bronze satyrs in the Naples museum; a monocle, worn +without a cord, conceals his dead eye, which he lost in battle. His walk +is a combination of a mince and a swagger; his movements are those of +an actor who knows that the spotlight is upon him. + +Though d'Annunzio takes high rank among the modern poets, many of his +admirers holding him to be the greatest one alive, he is a far greater +orator. His diction is perfect, his wealth of imagery exhaustless; I +have seen him sway a vast audience as a wheat-field is swayed by the +wind. His life he values not at all; the four rows of ribbons which on +the breast of his uniform make a splotch of color were not won by his +verses. Though well past the half-century mark, he has participated in a +score of aerial combats, occupying the observer's seat in his fighting +Sva and operating the machine-gun. But perhaps the most brilliant of his +military exploits was a bloodless one, when he flew over Vienna and +bombed that city with proclamations, written by himself, pointing out to +the Viennese the futility of further resistance. His popularity among +all classes is amazing; his word is law to the great organization known +as the _Combatenti_, composed of the 5,000,000 men who fought in the +Italian armies. He is a jingo of the jingoes, his plans for Italian +expansion reaching far beyond the annexation of Fiume or even all of +Dalmatia, for he has said again and again that he dreams of that day +when Italy will have extended her rule over all that territory which +once was held by Rome. + +[Illustration: THE INHABITANTS OF FIUME CHEERING D'ANNUNZIO AND HIS +RAIDERS + +"Save only Barcelona, Fiume has the most excitable population of any +place that I know." + +The patron saint of the city is, appropriately enough, St. Vitus] + +He is a very picturesque and interesting figure, is Gabriele +d'Annunzio--very much in earnest, wholly sincere, but fanatical, +egotistical, intolerant of the rights or opinions of others, a +visionary, and perhaps a little mad. I imagine that he would rather have +his name linked with that of that other soldier-poet, who "flamed away +at Missolonghi" nearly a century ago, than with any other character in +history save Garibaldi. D'Annunzio, like Byron, was an exile from his +native land. Both had a habit of never paying their bills; both had +offended against the social codes of their times; both flamed against +what they believed to be injustice and tyranny; both had a passionate +love for liberty; both possessed a highly developed sense of the +dramatic and delighted in playing romantic rôles. I have heard it said +that d'Annunzio's raid on Fiume would make his name immortal, but I +doubt it. Barely a score of years have passed since the raid on +Johannesburg, which was a far more daring and hazardous exploit than +d'Annunzio's Fiume performance, yet to-day how many people remember +Doctor Jameson? It can be said for this middle-aged poet that he has +successfully defied the government of Italy, that he flouted the royal +duke who was sent to parley with him, that he seduced the Italian army +and navy into committing open mutiny--"a breach of that military +discipline," in the words of the Prime Minister, "which is the +foundation of the safety of the state"--and that he has done more to +shake foreign confidence in the stability of the Italian character and +the dependability of the Italian soldier than the Austro-Germans did +when they brought about the disaster at Caporetto. + +I have heard it said that the Nitti government had advance knowledge of +the raid on Fiume and that the reason it took no vigorous measures +against the filibusters was because it secretly approved of their +action. This I do not believe. With President Wilson, the Jugoslavs, +d'Annunzio, and the Italian army and navy arrayed against him, I am +convinced that Mr. Nitti did everything that could be done without +precipitating either a war or a revolution. Much credit is also due to +the Jugoslavs for their forbearance and restraint under great +provocation. They must have been sorely tempted to give the Poet the +spanking he so richly deserves. + + * * * * * + +When the small army of newspaper correspondents who were despatched by +the great New York and London dailies to Khartoum to interview Colonel +Roosevelt upon his emergence from the jungle started up the White Nile +to meet the explorer, they were deterred, both by the shortage of boats +and the question of expense, from chartering individual steamers. But +the public at home was not permitted to know of these petty limitations +and annoyances. On the contrary, people all over the United States, at +their breakfast-tables, read the despatches from the far-off Sudan dated +from "On board the New York _Herald's_ dahabeah _Rameses_" or "The New +York _American's_ despatch-boat _Abbas Hilmi_," or "The Chicago +_Tribune's_ special steamer _General Gordon_," and never dreamed that +the young men in sun-helmets and white linen who were writing those +despatches were comfortably seated under the awnings of the same +decrepit stern-wheeler, which they had chartered jointly, but on which, +in order to lend importance and dignity to his despatches, each +correspondent had bestowed a particular name. + +But the destroyer _Sirio_, which we found awaiting us at Fiume, we did +not have to share with any one. Thanks to the courtesy of the Italian +Ministry of Marine, she was all ours, while we were aboard her, from her +knife-like prow to the screws kicking the water under her stern. + +"I am under orders to place myself entirely at your disposal," explained +her youthful and very stiffly starched skipper, Commander Poggi. "I am +to go where you desire and to stop as long as you please. Those are my +instructions." + +Thus it came about that, shortly after noon on a scorching summer day, +we cast off our moorings and, leaving quarrel-torn Fiume abaft, turned +the nose of the _Sirio_ sou' by sou'-west, down the coast of Dalmatia. +The sun-kissed waters of the Bay of Quarnero looked for all the world +like a vast azure carpet strewn with a million sparkling diamonds; on +our starboard quarter stretched the green-clad slopes of Istria, with +the white villas of Abbazia peeping coyly out from amid the groves of +pine and laurel; to the eastward the bleak brown peaks of the Dinaric +Alps rose, savage, mysterious, forbidding, against the cloudless summer +sky. Perhaps no stretch of coast in all the world has had so varied and +romantic a history or so many masters as this Dalmatian seaboard. Since +the days of the tattooed barbarians who called themselves Illyrian, this +coast has been ruled in turn by Phoenicians, Celts, Macedonians, Greeks, +Romans, Goths, Byzantines, Croats, Serbs, Bulgars, Huns, Avars, +Saracens, Normans, Magyars, Genoese, Venetians, Tartars, Bosnians, +Turks, French, Russians, Montenegrins, British, Austrians, Italians--and +now by Americans, for from Cape Planca southward to Ragusa, a distance +of something over a hundred miles, the United States is the governing +power and an American admiral holds undisputed sway. + +Leaning over the rail as we fled southward I lost myself in dreams of +far-off days. In my mind I could see, sweeping past in imaginary review, +those other vessels which, all down the ages, had skirted these same +shores: the purple sails of Phoenicia, Greek galleys bearing colonists +from Cnidus, Roman triremes with the slaves sweating at the oars, +high-powered, low-waisted Norman caravels with the arms of their +marauding masters painted on their bellowing canvas, stately Venetian +carracks with carved and gilded sterns, swift-sailing Uskok pirate +craft, their decks crowded with swarthy men in skirts and turbans, +Genoese galleons, laden with the products of the hot lands, French and +English frigates with brass cannon peering from their rows of ports, the +grim, gray monsters of the Hapsburg navy. And then I suddenly awoke, +for, coming up from the southward at full speed, their slanting funnels +vomiting great clouds of smoke, were four long, low, lean, incredibly +swift craft, ostrich-plumes of snowy foam curling from their bows, which +sped past us like wolfhounds running with their noses to the ground. As +they passed I could see quite plainly, flaunting from each taffrail, a +flag of stripes and stars. + +The sun was sinking behind Italy when, threading our way amid the maze +of islands and islets which border the Dalmatian shore, we saw beyond +our bows, silhouetted against the rose-coral of the evening sky, the +slender campaniles and the crenellated ramparts of Zara. It was so still +and calm and beautiful that I felt as though I were looking at a scene +upon a stage and that the curtain would descend at any moment and +destroy the illusion. The little group of white-clad naval officers who +greeted us upon the quay informed us that the governor-general, Admiral +Count Millo, had placed at our disposal the yacht _Zara_, formerly the +property of the Austrian Emperor, on which we were to live during our +stay in the Dalmatian capital. It was a peculiarly thoughtful thing to +do, for the summers are hot in Zara, the city's few hotels leave much to +be desired, and a stay at a palace, even that of a provincial governor, +is hedged about by a certain amount of formality and restrictions. But +the _Zara_, while we were aboard her, was as much ours as the +_Mayflower_ is Mr. Wilson's. We occupied the spacious after-cabins, +exquisitely paneled in white mahogany, which had been used by the +Austrian archduchesses and whose furnishings still bore the imperial +crown, and our breakfasts were served under the white awnings stretched +over the after-deck, where, lounging in the grateful shade, we could +look out across the harbor, dotted with the gaudy sails of fishing craft +and bordered by the walls and gardens of the quaint old city, to the +islands of Arbe and Pago, rising, like huge, uncut emeralds, from the +lazy southern sea. At noon we usually lunched with a score or more of +staff-officers in the large, cool dining-room of the officers' mess, and +at night we dined with the governor-general and his family at the +palace, formerly the residence of the Austrian viceroys. Dinner over, we +lounged in cane chairs on the terrace, served by white-clad, +silent-footed servants with coffee, cigarettes, and the maraschino for +which this coast is famous. Those were never-to-be-forgotten evenings, +for the gently heaving breast of the Adriatic glowed with a +phosphorescent luminousness, the air was heavy with the fragrance of +orange, almond, and oleander, the sky was like purple velvet, and the +stars seemed very near. + +Though the population of Dalmatia is overwhelmingly Slav, quite +two-thirds of the 14,000 inhabitants of Zara, its capital, are Italian. +Yet, were it not for the occasional Morlachs in their picturesque +costumes seen in the markets or on the wharfs, one would not suspect the +presence of any Slav element in the town, for the dim and tortuous +streets and the spacious squares bear Italian names--Via del Duomo, Riva +Vecchia, Piazza della Colonna; crouching above the city gates is the +snarling Lion of St. Mark, and everywhere one hears the liquid accents +of the Latin. Zara, like Fiume, is an Italian colony set down on a +Slavonian shore, and, like its sister-city to the north, it bears the +indelible and unmistakable imprint of Italian civilization. + +The long, narrow strip of territory sandwiched between the Adriatic and +the Dinaric Alps which comprised the Austrian province of Dalmatia, +though upward of 200 miles in length, has an area scarcely greater than +that of Connecticut and a population smaller than that of Cleveland. +Scarcely more than a tenth of its whole surface is under the plow, the +rest, where it is not altogether sterile, consisting of mountain +pasture. With the exception of scattered groves on the landward slopes, +the country is virtually treeless, the forests for which Dalmatia was +once famous having been cut down by the Venetian ship-builders or +wantonly burned by the Uskok pirates, while every attempt at replanting +has been frustrated by the shallowness of the soil, the frequent +droughts, and the multitudes of goats which browse on the young trees. +The dreary expanse of the Bukovica, lying between Zara and the Bosnian +frontier, is, without exception, the most inhospitable region that I +have ever seen. For mile after mile, far as the eye can see, the earth +is overlaid by a thick stratum of jagged limestone, so rough that no +horse could traverse it, so sharp and flinty that a quarter of an hour's +walking across it would cut to pieces the stoutest pair of boots. Under +the rays of the summer sun these rocks become as hot as the top of a +stove; so hot, indeed, that eggs can be cooked upon them, while metal +objects exposed for only a few minutes to the sun will burn the hand. +Scattered here and there over this terrible plateau are tiny farmsteads, +their houses and the walls shutting in the little patches under +cultivation being built from the stones obtained in clearing the soil, a +task requiring incredible patience. No wonder that the folk who dwell +in them are characterized by expressions as stony and hopeless as the +soil from which they wring a wretched existence. + +No seaboard of the Mediterranean, save only the coast of Greece, is so +deeply indented as the Dalmatian littoral, with Its unending succession +of rock-bound bays, as frequent as the perforations on a postage-stamp, +and its thick fringe of islands. In calm weather the channels between +these islands and the mainland resemble a chain of landlocked lakes, +like those in the Adirondacks or in southern Ontario, being connected by +narrow straits called _canales_, brilliantly clear to a depth of several +fathoms. As a rule, the surrounding hills are rugged, bleached yellow or +pale russet, and destitute of verdure, but their monotony is relieved by +the half-ruined castles and monasteries which, perched on the rocky +heights, perpetually reminded me of Howard Pyle's paintings, and by the +medieval charm of Zara, Sebenico, Spalato, Ragusa, Arbe, and Curzola, +whose architecture, though predominantly Venetian, bears characteristic +traces of the many races which have ruled them. + +Just as Italy insisted on pushing her new borders up to the Brenner so +that she might have a strategic frontier on the north, so she lays claim +to the larger of the Dalmatian islands--Lissa, Lésina, Curzola, and +certain others--in order to protect her Adriatic shores. A glance at the +map will make her reasons amply plain. There stretches Italy's eastern +coastline, 600 miles of it, from Venice to Otranto, with half a dozen +busy cities and a score of fishing towns, as bare and unprotected as a +bald man's hatless head. Not only is there not a single naval base on +Italy's Adriatic coast south of Venice, but there is no harbor or inlet +that can be transformed into one. Yet across the Adriatic, barely four +hours steam by destroyer away, is a wilderness of islands and deep +harbors where an enemy's fleet could lie safely hidden, from which it +could emerge to attack Italian commerce or to bombard Italy's +unprotected coast towns, and where it could take refuge when the pursuit +became too hot. All down the ages the dwellers along Italy's eastern +seaboard have been terrorized by naval raids from across the Adriatic. +And Italy has determined that they shall be terrorized no more. How +history repeats itself! Just as Rome, twenty-two centuries ago, could +not permit the neighboring islands of Sicily to fall into the hands of +Carthage, so Italy cannot permit these coastwise islands, which form her +only protection against attacks from the east, to pass under the control +of the Jugoslavs. + +"But," I said to the Italians with whom I discussed the matter, "why do +you need any such protection now that the world is to have a League of +Nations? Isn't that a sufficient guarantee that the Jugoslavs will never +attack you?" + +"The League of Nations is in theory a splendid thing," was their answer. +"We subscribe to it in principle most heartily. But because there is a +policeman on duty in your street, do you leave wide open your front +door?" + +To be quite candid, I do not think that it is against Jugoslavia, or, +perhaps it would be more accurate to say, against an unaided Jugoslavia, +that Italy is taking precautions. I have already said, I believe, that +thinking Italians look with grave forebodings to the day when a great +Slav confederation shall rise across the Adriatic, but that day, as they +know full well, is still far distant. Italy's desperate insistence on +retaining possession of the more important Dalmatian islands is dictated +by a far more immediate danger than that. She is convinced that her next +war will be fought, not with the weak young state of Jugoslavia, but +with Jugoslavia _allied with France_. Every Italian with whom I +discussed the question--and I might add, without boasting, many highly +placed and well-informed Italians have honored me with their +confidence--firmly believes that France is jealous of Italy's rapidly +increasing power in the Mediterranean, and that she is secretly +intriguing with the Jugoslavs and the Greeks to prevent Italy obtaining +commercial supremacy in the Balkans. I do not say that this is my +opinion, mind you, but I do say that it is the opinion held by most +Italians. I found that the resentment against the French for what the +Italians term France's "betrayal" of Italy at the Peace Conference was +almost universal; everywhere in Italy I found a deep-seated distrust of +France's commercial ambitions and political designs. Though the Italians +admit that the Jugoslavs will not be able to build a navy for many years +to come, they fear, or profess to fear, that the day is not +immeasurably far distant when a French battle fleet, co-operating with +the armies of Jugoslavia, will threaten Italy's Adriatic seaboard. And +they are determined that, should such a day ever come, French ships +shall not be afforded the protection, as were the Austrian, of the +Dalmatian islands. Italy, with her great modern battle fleet and her +5,000,000 fighting men, regards the threats of Jugoslavia with something +akin to contempt, but France, turned imperialistic and arrogant by her +victory over the Hun, Italy distrusts and fears, believing that, while +protesting her friendship, she is secretly fomenting opposition to +legitimate Italian aspirations in the Balkan peninsula and in the Middle +Sea. (Again let me remind you that I am giving you not my own, but +Italy's point of view.) You will sneer at this, perhaps, as a phantasm +of the imagination, but I assure you, with all the earnestness and +emphasis at my command, that this distrust of one great Latin nation for +another, whether it is justified or not, forms a deadly menace to the +future peace of the world. + +Because I did not wish to confine my observations to the coast towns, +which are, after all, essentially Italian, I motored across Dalmatia at +its widest part, from Zara, through Benkovac, Kistonje, and Knin, to the +little hamlet of Kievo, on the Jugoslav frontier. Though the Slav +population of the Dalmatian hinterland is, according to the assertions +of Belgrade, bitterly hostile to Italian rule, I did not detect a single +symptom of animosity toward the Italian officers who were my companions +on the part of the peasants whom we passed. They displayed, on the +contrary, the utmost courtesy and good feeling, the women, looking like +huge and gaudily dressed dolls in their snowy blouses and embroidered +aprons, courtesying, while the tall, fine-looking men gravely touched +the little round caps which are the national head-gear of Dalmatia. + +Kievo is the last town in Dalmatia, being only a few score yards from +the Bosnian frontier. Its little garrison was in command of a young +Italian captain, a tall, slender fellow with the blond beard of a Viking +and the dreamy eyes of a poet. He had been stationed at this lonely +outpost for seven months, he told me, and he welcomed us as a man +wrecked on a desert island would welcome a rescue party. In order to +escape from the heat and filth and insects of the village, he had built +in a near-by grove a sort of arbor, with a roof of interlaced branches +to keep off the sun. Its furnishings consisted of a home-made table, an +army cot, two or three decrepit chairs, and a phonograph. I did not need +to inquire where he had obtained the phonograph, for on its cover was +stenciled the familiar red triangle of the Y.M.C.A.--the "_Yimka_," as +the Italians call it--which operates more than 300 _casas_ for the use +of the Italian army. While our host was preparing a dubious-looking +drink from sweet, bright-colored syrups and lukewarm water, I amused +myself by glancing over the little stack of records on the table. They +were, of course, nearly all Italian, but I came upon three that I knew +well: "_Loch Lomond_," "_Old Folks at Home_" and "_So Long, Letty_." It +was like meeting a party of old friends in a strange land. I tried the +later record, and though it was not very clear, for the captain's supply +of needles had run out and he had been reduced to using ordinary pins, +it was startling to hear Charlotte Greenwood's familiar voice caroling +"_So long, so long, Letty_," there on the borders of Bosnia, with a +picket of curious Jugoslavs, rifles across their knees, seated on the +rocky hillside, barely a stone's throw away. Still, come to think about +it, the war produced many contrasts quite as strange, as, for example, +when the New York Irish, the old 69th, crossed the Rhine with the +regimental band playing "_The Sidewalks of New York_." + +We touched at Sebenico, which is forty knots down the coast from Zara, +in order to accept an invitation to lunch with Lieutenant-General +Montanari, who commands all the Italian troops in Dalmatia. Now before +we started down the Adriatic we had been warned that, because of +President Wilson's attitude on the Fiume question, the feeling against +Americans ran very high, and that from the Italians we must be prepared +for coldness, if not for actual insults. Well, this luncheon at Sebenico +was an example of the insults we received and the coldness with which we +were treated. Because our destroyer was late, half a hundred busy +officers delayed their midday meal for two hours in order not to sit +down without us. The table was decorated with American flags, and other +American flags had been hand-painted on the menus. And, as a final +affront, a destroyer had been sent across the Adriatic Sea to obtain +lobsters because the general had heard that my wife was particularly +fond of them. After that experience don't talk to me about Southern +hospitality. Though the Italians bitterly resent President Wilson's +interference in an affair which they consider peculiarly their own, +their resentment does not extend to the President's countrymen. Their +attitude is aptly illustrated by an incident which took place at the +mess of a famous regiment of Bersaglieri, when the picture of President +Wilson, which had hung on the wall of the mess-hall, opposite that of +the King, was taken down--and an American flag hung in its place. + +The most interesting building in Sebenico is the cathedral, which was +begun when America had yet to be discovered. The chief glory of the +cathedral is its exterior, with its superb carved doors, its countless +leering, grinning gargoyles--said to represent the evil spirits expelled +from the church--and a broad frieze, running entirely around the +edifice, composed of sculptured likenesses of the architects, artists, +sculptors, masons, and master-builders who participated in its +construction. Put collars, neckties, and derby hats on some of them and +you would have striking likenesses of certain labor leaders of to-day. +The next time a building of note is erected in this country the +countenances of the bricklayers, hod-carriers, and walking delegates +might be immortalized in some such fashion. I offer the suggestion to +the labor-unions for what it is worth. + +Throughout all the years of Austrian domination the citizens of Sebenico +remained loyal to their Italian traditions, as is proved by the +medallions ornamenting the façade of the cathedral, each of which bears +the image of a saint. One of these sculptured saints, it was pointed out +to me, has the unmistakable features of Victor Emanuel I, another those +of Garibaldi. Thus did the Italian workmen of their day cunningly +express their defiance of Austria's tyranny by ornamenting one of her +most splendid cathedrals with the heads of Italian heroes. Imagine +carving the heads of Elihu Root and Charles E. Hughes on the façade of +Tammany Hall! + +Next to the cathedral, the most interesting building in Sebenico is the +insect-powder factory. It is a large factory and does a thriving +business, the need for its product being Balkan-wide. If, for upward of +five months, you had fought nightly engagements with the _cimex +lectularius_, you would understand how vital is an ample supply of +powder. Believe me or not, as you please, but in many parts of Dalmatia +and Albania we were compelled to defend our beds against nocturnal +raiding-parties by raising veritable ramparts of insect-powder, very +much as in Flanders we threw up earthworks against the assaults of the +Hun, while in Monastir the only known way of obtaining sleep is to set +the legs of one's bed in basins filled with kerosene. + +Four hours steaming south from Sebenico brought us to Spalato, the +largest city of Dalmatia and one of the most picturesquely situated +towns in the Levant. It owes its name to the great palace (_palatium_) +of Diocletian, within the precincts of which a great part of the old +town is built and around which have sprung up its more modern suburbs. +Cosily ensconced between the stately marble columns which formed the +palace's façade are fruit, tobacco, barber, shoe, and tailor shops, +whose proprietors drive a roaring trade with the sailors from the +international armada assembled in the harbor. A great hall, which had +probably originally been one of the vestibules of the palace, was +occupied by the Knights of Columbus, the place being in charge of a +khaki-clad priest, Father Mullane, of Johnstown, Pa., who twice daily +dispensed true American hospitality, in the form of hot doughnuts and +mugs of steaming coffee, to the blue-jackets from the American ships. As +there was no coal to be had in the town, he made the doughnuts with the +aid of a plumber's blowpipe. In the course of our conversation Father +Mullane mentioned that he was living with the Serbian bishop--at least I +think he was a bishop-of Spalato. + +"I suppose he speaks English or French," I remarked. + +"He does not," was the answer. + +"Then you must have picked up some Serb or Italian," I hazarded. + +"Niver a wurrd of thim vulgar tongues do I know," said he. + +"Then how do you and the bishop get along?" + +"Shure," said Father Mullane, in the rich brogue which is, I imagine, +something of an affectation, "an' what is the use of bein' educated for +the church if we were not able to converse with ease an' fluency in +iligant an' refined Latin?" + +When we were leaving Spalato, Father Mullane presented us with a _Bon +Voyage_ package which contained cigarettes, a box of milk chocolate, and +a five-pound tin of gum-drops. The cigarettes we smoked, the chocolate +we ate, but the gum-drops we used for tips right across the Balkans. In +lands whose people have not known the taste of sugar for five years we +found that a handful of gum-drops would accomplish more than money. A +few men with Father Mullane's resource, tact, and sense of humor would +do more than all the diplomats under the roof of the Hotel Crillon to +settle international differences and make the nations understand each +other. + +I had been warned by archæological friends, before I went to Dalmatia, +that the ruins of Salona, which once was the capital of Roman Dalmatia +and the site of the summer palace of Diocletian, would probably +disappoint me. They date from the period of Roman decadence, so my +learned friends explained, and, though following Roman traditions, +frequently show traces of negligence, a fact which is accounted for by +the haste with which the ailing and hypochondriac Emperor sought to +build himself a retreat from the world. Still, the little excursion--for +Salona is only five miles from Spalato--provided much that was worth the +seeing: a partially excavated amphitheater, a long row of stone +sarcophagi lying in a trench, one or two fine gates, and some +beautifully preserved mosaics. I must confess, however, that I was more +interested in the modern aspects of this region than in its glorious +past, for, standing upon the massive walls of the Roman city, I looked +down upon a panorama of power such as Diocletian had never pictured in +his wildest dreams, for, moored in a long and impressive row, their +stern-lines made fast to the _Molo_, was a line of war-ships flying the +flags of England, France, Italy, and the United States. On the right of +the line, as befitted the fact that its commander was the senior naval +officer and in charge of all this portion of the coast, was Admiral +Andrews's flag-ship, the _Olympia_, but little changed, at least to the +casual glance, since that day, more than twoscore years ago, when she +blazed her way into Manila Bay and won for us a colonial empire. On her +bridge, outlined in brass tacks, I was shown Admiral Dewey's footprints, +just as he stood at the beginning of the battle when he gave the order +"You may fire when you are ready, Gridley." + +Of the 18,000 inhabitants of Spalato, less than a tenth are Italian, the +general character of the town and the sympathies of its inhabitants +being strongly pro-Slav. In fact, its streets were filled with Jugoslav +soldiers, many of them still wearing the uniforms of the Austrian +regiments in which they had served but with Serbian _képis_, while +others looked strangely familiar in khaki uniforms furnished them by the +United States. It being warm weather, most of the men wore their coats +unbuttoned, thereby displaying a considerable expanse of hairy chest or +violently colored underwear and producing a somewhat negligée effect. +Because of the presence in the town of the Jugoslav soldiery, the crews +of the Italian war-ships were not permitted to go ashore with the +sailors of the other nations, as Admiral Andrews feared that their +presence might provoke unpleasant incidents. Hence their "shore leave" +had, for nearly six months, been confined to the narrow concrete _Molo_, +where they were permitted to stroll in the evenings and where the +Italian girls of the town came to see them. For a Jugoslav girl to have +been seen in company with an Italian sailor would have meant her social +ostracism, if nothing worse. + +Though Italy will unquestionably insist on the cession of certain of the +Dalmatian islands, in order, as I have already pointed out, to assure +herself a defensible eastern frontier, and though she will ask for Zara +and possibly for Sebenico on the ground of their preponderantly Italian +character, I believe that she is prepared to abandon her original claims +to Dalmatia, which is, when all is said and done, almost purely +Slavonian, Jugoslavia thus obtaining nearly 550 miles of coast. Now I +will be quite frank and say that when I went to Dalmatia I was strongly +opposed to the extension of Italian rule over that region. And I still +believe that it would be a political mistake. But, after seeing the +country from end to end and talking with the Italian officials who have +been temporarily charged with its administration, I have become +convinced that they have the best interests of the people genuinely at +heart and that the Dalmatians might do worse, so far as justice and +progress are concerned, than to intrust their future to the guidance of +such men. + +It had been our original intention to steam straight south from Spalato +to the Bocche di Cattaro and Montenegro, but, being foot-loose and free +and having plenty of coal in the _Sirio's_ bunkers, we decided to make a +detour in order to visit the Curzolane Islands. In case you cannot +recall its precise situation, I might remind you that the Curzolane +Archipelago, consisting of several good-sized islands--Brazza, Lésina, +Lissa, Mélida, and Curzola--and a great number of smaller ones, lies off +the Dalmatian coast, almost opposite Ragusa. From Spalato we laid our +course due south, past Solta, famed for its honey produced from rosemary +and the cistus-rose; skirted the wooded shores of Brazza, the largest +island of the group, rounded Capo Pellegrino and entered the lovely +harbor of Lésina. We did not anchor but, slowing to half-speed, made +the circuit of the little port, running close enough to the shore to +obtain pictures of the famous Loggia built by Sanmicheli, the Fondazo, +the ancient Venetian arsenal, and the crumbling Spanish fort, perched +high on a crag above the town. Then south by west again, past Lissa, the +western-most island of the group, where an Italian fleet under Persano +was defeated and destroyed by an Austrian squadron under Tegetthof in +1866. A marble lion in the local cemetery commemorated the victory and +marked the resting-places of the Austrian dead, but when the Italians +took possession of the island after the Armistice they changed the +inscription on the monument so that it now commemorates their final +victory over Austria. It was not, I think, a very sportsmanlike +proceeding. + +Leaving Lissa to starboard, we steamed through the Canale di +Sabbioncello, with exquisite panoramas unrolling on either hand, and +dropped anchor off the quay of Curzola, where the governor of the +islands, Admiral Piazza, awaited us with his staff. In spite of the +bleakness of the surrounding mountains, Curzola is one of the most +exquisitely beautiful little towns that I have ever seen. The next time +you are in the Adriatic you should not fail to go there. Time and the +hand of man--for the people are a color-loving race--have given many +tints, soft and bright, to its roofs, towers, and ramparts. It is a town +of dim, narrow, winding streets, of steep flights of worn stone steps, +of moss-covered archways, and of some of the most splendid specimens of +the domestic architecture of the Middle Ages that exist outside of the +Street of the Crusaders in Rhodes. The sole modern touches are the +costumes of the islanders, and they are sufficiently picturesque not to +spoil the picture. How the place has escaped the motion-picture people I +fail to understand. (As a matter of fact, it hasn't, for I took with me +an operator and a camera--the first the islanders had ever seen.) +Besides the Cathedral of San Marco, with its splendid doors, its +exquisitely carved choir-stalls black with age and use, its choir +balustrade and pulpit of translucent alabaster, and its dim old +altar-piece by Tintoretto, the town boasts the Loggia or council +chambers, the palace of the Venetian governors, the noble mansion of the +Arnieri, and, brooding over all, a towering campanile, five centuries +old. The Lion of St. Mark, which appears on several of the public +buildings, holds beneath its paw a closed instead of an open +book--symbolizing, so I was told, the islanders' dissatisfaction with +certain laws of the Venetians. + +But the phase of my visit which I enjoyed the most was when Admiral +Piazza took us across the bay, on a Detroit-built submarine-chaser, to a +Franciscan monastery dating from the fifteenth century. We were met by +the abbot at the water-stairs, and, after being shown the beautiful +Venetian Gothic cloisters, with alabaster columns whose carving was +almost lacelike in its delicate tracery, we were led along a wooded path +beside the sea, over a carpet of pine-needles, to a cloistered +rose-garden, in which stood, amid a bower of blossoms, a blue and white +statue of the Virgin. The fragrance of the flowers in the little +enclosure was like the incense in a church, above our heads the great +pines formed a canopy of green, and the music was furnished by the birds +and the murmuring sea. Here we seemed a world away from the waiting +armies and the great gray battleships, from the quarrels of Latin and +Slav. It was the first real peace that I had known after five years of +war, and I should have liked to remain there longer. But Montenegro, +Albania, Macedonia, all the unhappy, war-torn lands of the Near East lay +before me, and I turned reluctantly away. But my thoughts keep harking +back to the little town beside the turquoise bay, to the restfulness of +its old, old buildings, to the perfume of its flowers, and the +whispering voice of its turquoise sea. So some day, when the world is +really at peace and there are no more wars to write about, I think that +I shall go back to where + + "Far, far from here, + The Adriatic breaks in a warm bay + Among the green Illyrian hills." + + + + +CHAPTER III + +THE CEMETERY OF FOUR EMPIRES + + +We stood on the forward deck of the _Sirio_ as she slipped southward, +through the placid waters of the Adriatic, at twenty knots an hour. Less +than a league away the Balkan mountains, savage, mysterious, forbidding, +rose in a rocky rampart against the eastern sky. + +"Did it ever occur to you," remarked the Italian officer who stood +beside me, a noted historian in his own land, "that four great empires +have died as a result of their lust for domination over the wretched +lands which lie beyond those mountains? Austria coveted Serbia--and the +empire of the Hapsburgs is in fragments now. Russia, seeing her +influence in the peninsula imperiled, hastened to the support of her +fellow Slavs--but Russia has gone down in red ruin, and the Romanoffs +are dead. Germany, seeking a gateway to the warm water, and a highway +to the East, seized on the excuse thus offered to launch her waiting +armies--and the empire reared by the Hohenzollerns is bankrupt and +broken. Turkey fought to retain her hold on such European territory as +still remained under the crescent banner. To-day a postmortem is about +to be held on the Turkish Empire and the House of Osman. Think of it! +Four great empires, four ancient dynasties, lie buried over there in the +Balkans. It is something more than a range of mountains at which we are +looking; it is the wall of a cemetery." + +Rada di Antivari is a U-shaped bay, the color of a turquoise, from whose +shores the Montenegrin mountains rise in tiers, like the seats of an +arena. We put in there unexpectedly because a _bora_, sweeping suddenly +down from the northwest, had lashed the Adriatic into an ugly mood and +our destroyer, whose decks were almost as near the water as those of a +submarine running awash, was not a craft that one would choose for +comfort in such weather. Nor was our feeling of security increased by +the knowledge that we were skirting the edges of one of the largest +mine-fields in the Adriatic. But the _Sirio_ had scarcely poked her +sharp nose around the end of the breakwater which provides the excuse +for dignifying the exposed roadstead of Antivari (with the accent on the +second syllable, so that it rhymes with "discovery") by the name of +harbor before I saw what we had stumbled upon some form of trouble. +There were three other Italian destroyers in the harbor but, instead of +being moored snugly alongside the quay, they were strung out in a +semblance of battle formation, so that their deck-guns, from which the +canvas muzzle-covers had been removed, could sweep the rocky heights +above and around them. A string of signal-flags broke out from our +masthead and was answered in like fashion by the flag-ship of the +flotilla, after which formal exchange of greetings our wireless began to +crackle and splutter in an animated explanation of our unexpected +appearance. Our hawsers had scarcely been made fast before a launch left +the flag-ship and came plowing toward us, a knot of white-uniformed +officers in the stern. From the blue rug with the Italian arms, which, +as I could see through my glasses, was draped over the stern-sheets, I +deduced that the commander of the flotilla was paying us a visit. + +"You have come at rather an unfortunate moment," he said after the +introductions were over. "Last night we were fired on by Jugoslavs on +the mountainside over there," indicating the heights across the harbor. +"In fact, the firing has just ceased. There must have been a thousand of +them or more, judging from the flashes. But I hope that madame will not +be alarmed, for she is really quite safe. They are firing at long range, +and the only danger is from a stray bullet. Still, it is most +embarrassing. On madame's account I am sorry." + +His manner was that of a host apologizing to a guest because the +children of the family have measles and at the same time attempting to +convince the guest that measles are hardly ever contagious. I relieved +his quite obvious embarrassment by assuring him that Mrs. Powell much +preferred taking chances with snipers' bullets to the discomfort of a +destroyer in an ugly sea; and that, having journeyed six thousand miles +for the express purpose of seeing what was happening in the Balkans, we +would be disappointed if nothing happened at all. + +When I left Paris for the Adriatic I carried with me the impression, as +the result of conversations with members of the various peace +delegations, that the people of Montenegro were almost unanimously in +favor of annexation to Serbia, thereby becoming a part of the new +Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes. But before I had spent +twenty-four hours in Montenegro itself I discovered that on the subject +of the political future of their little country the Montenegrins are +very far from being of the same mind. And, being a simple, primitive +folk, and strong believers in the superiority of the bullet to the +ballot, instead of sitting down and arguing the matter, they take cover +behind a convenient rock and, when their political opponents pass by, +take pot-shots at them. + +My preconceived opinions about political conditions in Montenegro were +largely based on the knowledge that shortly after the signing of the +Armistice a Montenegrin National Assembly, so called, had met at +Podgoritza, and, after declaring itself in favor of the deposition of +King Nicholas and the Petrovitch dynasty, which has ruled in Montenegro +since William of Orange sat on the throne of England, voted for the +union of Montenegro with the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes. +Just how representative of the real sentiments of the nation was this +assembly I do not know, but that the sentiment in favor of such a +surrender of Montenegrin independence is far from being overwhelming +would seem to be proved by the fact that the Serbs, in order to hold the +territory thus given to them, have found it necessary to install a +Serbian military governor in Cetinje, to replace by Serbs all the +Montenegrin prefects, to raise a special gendarmerie recruited from men +who are known to be friendly to Serbia and officered by Serbs, and to +occupy this sister-state, which, it is alleged, requested union with +Serbia of its own free will, with two battalions of Serbian infantry. If +Montenegrin sentiment for the union is as overwhelming as Belgrade +claims, then it seems to me that the Serbs are acting in a rather +high-handed fashion. + +I talked with a good many people while I was in Montenegro, and I was +especially careful not to meet them through the medium of either Serbs +or Italians. From these conversations I learned that the Montenegrins +are divided into three factions. The first of these, and the smallest, +desires the return of the King. It represents the old conservative +element and is composed of the men who have fought under him in many +wars. The second faction, which is the noisiest and at present holds the +reins of power, advocates the annexation of Montenegro to Serbia and the +deposition of King Nicholas in favor of the Serbian Prince-Regent +Alexander. The third party, which, though it has no means of making its +desires known, is, I am inclined to believe, the largest, and which +numbers among its supporters the most level-headed and far-seeing men in +the country, while frankly distrustful of Serbian ambitions and +unwilling to submit to Serbian dictatorship, possesses sufficient vision +to recognize the political and commercial advantages which would accrue +to Montenegro were she to become an equal partner in a confederation of +those Jugoslav countries which claim the same racial origin. Most +thoughtful Montenegrins have always been in favor of a union of all the +southern Slavs, along the general lines, perhaps, of the Germanic +Confederation, but this must not be interpreted as implying that they +are in favor of a union merely of Montenegro with Serbia, which would +mean the absorption of the smaller country by the larger one. They are +determined that, if such a confederation is brought about, Serbia shall +not occupy the dictatorial position which Prussia did in Germany, and +that the Karageorgevitches shall not play a rôle analogous to that of +the Hohenzollerns. Montenegro, remember, threw off the Turkish yoke a +century and three-quarters before Serbia was able to achieve her +liberty, and the patriotic among her people feel that this hard-won, +long-held independence should not lightly be thrown away. + +It is not generally known, perhaps, that, when Austria declared war on +Serbia in August, 1914, an offensive and defensive alliance already +existed between Serbia, Greece, and Montenegro. We know how highly +Greece valued her signature to that treaty. Montenegro, with an area +two-thirds that of New Jersey, and a population less than that of +Milwaukee, could easily have used her weakness as an excuse for +standing aside, like Greece. Very likely Austria would not have molested +her and the little country would have been spared the horrors of a third +war within two years. But King Nicholas's conception of what constituted +loyalty and honor was different from Constantine's. Instead of accepting +the extensive territorial compensations offered by the Austrian envoy if +Montenegro would remain neutral, King Nicholas wired to the Serbian +Premier, M. Pachitch: "_Serbia may rely on the brotherly and +unconditional support of Montenegro in this moment, on which depends the +fate of the Serbian nation, as well as on any other occasion_," and took +the field at the head of 40,000 troops--all the men able to bear arms in +the little kingdom. + +It has been repeatedly asserted by his enemies that King Nicholas sold +out to the Austrians and that, therefore, he deserves neither sympathy +nor consideration. As to this I have no _direct_ knowledge. How could I? +But, after talking with nearly all of the leading actors in the +Montenegrin drama, it is my personal belief that the King, though guilty +of many indiscretions and errors of policy, did not betray his people. +I am not ignorant of the King's shortcomings in other respects. But in +this case I believe that he has been grossly maligned. If he did sell +out he drove an extremely poor bargain, for he is living in exile, in +extremely straitened circumstances, his only luxury a car which the +French Government loans him. It is difficult to believe that, had he +been a traitor to the Allied cause, the British, French, and Italian +governments would continue to recognize him, to pay him subventions, and +to treat him as a ruling sovereign. Certain American diplomats have told +me that they were convinced that the King had a secret understanding +with Austria, though they admitted quite frankly that their convictions +were based on suspicions which they could not prove. To offset this, a +very exalted personage, whose name for obvious reasons I cannot mention, +but whose integrity and whose sources of information are beyond +question, has given me his word that, to his personal knowledge, +Nicholas had neither a treaty nor a secret understanding with the enemy. + +"The propaganda against him had been so insidious and successful, +however," my informant concluded, "that even his own soldiers were +convinced that he had sold out to Austria and when the King attempted to +rally them as they were falling back from the positions on Mount +Lovtchen they jeered in his face, shouting that he had betrayed them. +Yet I, who was on the spot and who am familiar with all the facts, give +you my personal assurance that he had not." + +Nor did the King give up his sword to the Austrian commander at Grahovo, +as was reported in the European press. When, with three-quarters of his +country overrun by the Austrians, his chief of staff, Colonel Pierre +Pechitch of the Serbian Army, reported "_Henceforth all resistance and +all fighting against the enemy is impossible. There is no chance of the +situation improving_," King Nicholas, in the words of Baron Sonnino, +then Italian Foreign Minister, "preferred to withdraw into exile rather +than sign a separate peace." + +I may be wrong in my conclusions, of course; the cabinet ministers and +the ambassadors and the generals in whose honor and truthfulness I +believe may have deliberately deceived me, but, after a most +painstaking and conscientious investigation, I am convinced that we have +been misinformed and blinded by a propaganda against King Nicholas and +his people which has rarely been equaled in audacity of untruth and +dexterity of misrepresentation. To employ the methods used by certain +Balkan politicians in their attempted elimination of Montenegro as an +independent nation even Tammany Hall would be ashamed. + +When, upon the occupation of Montenegro by the Austrians, the King fled +to France and established his government at Neuilly, near Paris--just as +the fugitive Serbian Government was established at Corfu and the Belgian +at Le Havre--England, France, and Italy entered into an agreement to pay +him a subvention, for the maintenance of himself and his government, +until such time as the status of Montenegro was definitely settled by +the Peace Conference. England ceased paying her share of this subvention +early in the spring of 1919. When, a few weeks later, it was announced +that King Nicholas was preparing to go to Italy to visit his daughter, +Queen Elena, the French Minister to the court of Montenegro bluntly +informed him that the French Government regarded his proposed visit to +Italy as the first step toward his return to Montenegro, and that, +should he cross the French frontier, France would immediately break off +diplomatic relations with Montenegro and cease paying her share of the +subvention. This would seem to bear out the assertion, which I heard +everywhere in the Balkans, that France is bending every effort toward +building up a strong Jugoslavia in order to offset Italy's territorial +and commercial ambitions in the peninsula. The French indignantly +repudiate the suggestion that they are coercing the Montenegrin King. + +"How absurd!" exclaimed the officials with whom I talked. "We holding +King Nicholas a prisoner? The idea is preposterous. So far as France is +concerned, he can return to Montenegro whenever he chooses." + +Still, their protestations were not entirely convincing. Their attitude +reminded me of the millionaire whose daughter, it was rumored, had +eloped with the family chauffeur. + +"Sure, she can marry him if she wants to," he told the reporters. "I +have no objection. She is free, white, and twenty-one. But if she does +marry him I'll stop her allowance, cut her out of my will, and never +speak to her again." + +Because it has been my privilege to know many sovereigns and because I +have been honored with the confidence of several of them, I have become +to a certain extent immune from the spell which seems to be exercised +upon the commoner by personal contact with the Lord's anointed. Save +when I have had some definite mission to accomplish, I have never had +any overwhelming desire "to grasp the hand that shook the hand of John +L. Sullivan." To me it seems an impertinence to take the time of busy +men merely for the sake of being able to boast about it afterward to +your friends. But because, during my travels in Jugoslavia, I heard King +Nicholas repeatedly denounced by Serbian officials with far more +bitterness than they employed toward their late enemies and oppressors, +the Hapsburgs, I was frankly eager for an opportunity to form my own +opinions about Montenegro's aged ruler. The opportunity came when, upon +my return to Paris, I was informed that the King wished to meet me, he +being desirous, I suppose, of talking with one who had come so recently +from his own country. + +At that time the King, with the Queen, Prince Peter, and his two +unmarried daughters, was occupying a modest suite in the Hotel Meurice, +in the rue de Rivoli. He received me in a large, sun-flooded room +overlooking the Tuileries Gardens. The bald, broad-shouldered, rather +bent old man in the blue serge suit, with a tin ear-trumpet in his hand, +who rose from behind a great flat-topped desk to greet me, was a +startling contrast to the tall and vigorous figure, in the picturesque +dress of a Montenegrin chieftain, whom I had seen in Cetinje before the +war. I looked at him with interest, for he has been on the throne longer +than any living sovereign, he is the father-in-law of two Kings, and is +connected by marriage with half the royal houses of Europe, and he is +the last of that long line of patriarch-rulers who, leading their armies +in person, have for more than two centuries maintained the independence +of the Black Mountain and its people. + +[Illustration: HIS MAJESTY NICHOLAS I. KING OF MONTENEGRO + +He has been on the throne longer than any living sovereign, he is the +father-in-law of two kings, and is connected by marriage with half the +royal houses of Europe] + +King Nicholas, as is generally known, has been remarkably successful in +marrying off his daughters, two of them having married Kings, two +others grand dukes, while a fifth became the wife of a Battenberg +prince. Remembering this, I was sorely tempted to ask the King as to the +truth of a story which I had heard in Cetinje years before. An English +visitor to the Montenegrin capital had been invited to lunch at the +palace. During the meal the King asked his guest his impressions of +Montenegro. + +"Its scenery is magnificent," was the answer. "Its women are as +beautiful and its men as handsome as any I have ever seen. Their +costumes are marvelously picturesque. But the country appears to have no +exports, your Majesty." + +"Ah, my friend," replied the King, his eyes twinkling, "you forget my +daughters." + +Another story, which illustrates the King's quick wit, was told me by +his Majesty himself. When, some years before the Great War, Emperor +Francis Joseph, on a yachting cruise down the Adriatic, dropped anchor +in the Bocche di Cattaro, the Montenegrin mountaineers celebrated the +imperial visit by lighting bonfires on their mountain peaks, a mile +above the harbor. + +"I see that you dwell in the clouds," remarked Francis Joseph to +Nicholas, as they stood on the deck of the yacht after dinner watching +the pin-points of flame twinkling high above them. + +"Where else can I live?" responded the Montenegrin ruler. "Austria holds +the sea; Turkey holds the land; the sky is all that is left for +Montenegro." + +One of the things which the King told me during our conversation will, I +think, interest Americans. He said that when President Wilson arrived in +Paris he sent him an autograph letter, congratulating him on the great +part he had played in bringing peace to the world and requesting a +personal interview. + +"But he never granted me the interview," said the King sadly. "In fact, +he never acknowledged my letter." + +I attempted to bridge over the embarrassing pause by suggesting that +perhaps the letter had never been received, but he waved aside the +suggestion as unworthy of consideration. I gathered from what he said +that royal letters do not miscarry. + +"I realize that I am an old man and that my country is a very small and +unimportant one," he continued, "while your President is the ruler of a +great country and a very busy man. Still, we in Montenegro had heard so +much of America's chivalrous attitude toward small, weak nations that I +was unduly disappointed, perhaps, when my letter was ignored. I felt +that my age, and the fact that I have occupied the throne of Montenegro +for sixty years, entitled me to the consideration of a reply." + +But we have strayed far from the road which we were traveling. Let us +get back to the people of the mountains; I like them better than the +politicians. Antivari, which nestles in a hollow of the hills, three or +four miles inland from the port of the same name, is one of the most +fascinating little towns in all the Balkans. Its narrow, winding, +cobble-paved streets, shaded by canopies of grapevines and bordered by +rows of squat, red-tiled houses, their plastered walls tinted pale blue, +bright pink or yellow, and the amazingly picturesque costumes of its +inhabitants--slender, stately Montenegrin women in long coats of +turquoise-colored broad-cloth piped with crimson, Bosnians in skin-tight +breeches covered with arabesques of braid and jackets heavy with +embroidery, Albanians wearing the starched and pleated skirts of linen +known as _fustanellas_ and _comitadjis_ with cartridge-filled bandoliers +slung across their chests and their sashes bristling with assorted +weapons, priests of the Orthodox Church with uncut hair and beards, +wearing hats that look like inverted stovepipes, hook-nosed, +white-bearded, patriarchal-looking Turks in flowing robes and snowy +turbans, fierce-faced, keen-eyed mountain herdsmen in fur caps and coats +of sheepskin--all these combined to make me feel that I had intruded +upon the stage of a theater during a musical comedy performance, and +that I must find the exit and escape before I was discovered by the +stage-manager. If David Belasco ever visits Antivari he will probably +try to buy the place bodily and transport it to East Forty-fourth Street +and write a play around it. + +There were two gentlemen in Antivari whose actions gave me unalloyed +delight. One of them, so I was told, was the head of the local +anti-Serbian faction; the other, a human arsenal with weapons sprouting +from his person like leaves from an artichoke, was the chief of a +notorious band of _comitadjis_, as the Balkan guerrillas are called. +They walked up and down the main street of Antivari, arms over each +other's shoulders, heads close together, lost in conversation, but +glancing quickly over their shoulders every now and then to see if they +were in danger of being overheard, exactly like the plotters in a +motion-picture play. From the earnestness of their conversation, the +obvious awe in which they were held by the townspeople, and the +suspicious looks cast in their direction by the Serbian gendarmes, I +gathered that in the near future things were going to happen in that +region. Approaching them, I haltingly explained, in the few words of +Serbian at my command, that I was an American and that I wished to +photograph them. Upon comprehending my request they debated the question +for some moments, then shook their heads decisively. It was evident +that, in view of what they had in mind, they considered it imprudent to +have their pictures floating around as a possible means of +identification. But while they were discussing the matter I took the +liberty, without their knowledge, of photographing them anyway. It was +as well, perhaps, that they did not see me do it, for the _comitadji_ +chieftain had a long knife, two revolvers, and four hand-grenades in +his belt and a rifle slung over his shoulder. + +From Antivari to Valona by sea is about as far as from New York to +Albany by the Hudson, so that, leaving the Montenegrin port in the early +morning, we had no difficulty in reaching the Albanian one before +sunset. Before the war Valona--which, by the way, appears as Avlona on +most American-made maps--was an insignificant fishing village, but upon +Italy's occupation of Albania it became a military base of great +importance. Whenever we had touched on our journey down the coast we had +been warned against going to Valona because of the danger of contracting +fever. The town stands on the edge of a marsh bordering the shore and, +as no serious attempt has been made to drain the marsh or to clean up +the town itself, about sixty per cent of the troops stationed there are +constantly suffering from a peculiarly virulent form of malaria, similar +to the Chagres fever of the Isthmus. The danger of contracting it was +apparently considered very real, for, before we had been an hour in the +quarters assigned to us, officers began to arrive with safeguards of one +sort or another. One brought screens for all the windows; another +provided mosquito-bars for the beds; a third presented us with +disinfectant cubes, which we were to burn in our rooms several times +each day; a fourth made us a gift of quinine pills, two of which we were +to take hourly; still another of our hosts appeared with a dozen bottles +of _acqua minerale_ and warned us not to drink the local water, and, +finally, to ensure us against molestation by prowling natives, a couple +of sentries were posted beneath our windows. + +[Illustration: TWO CONSPIRATORS OF ANTIVARI + +They stood lost in conversation, heads close together, exactly like the +plotters in a motion picture play] + +"Valona isn't a particularly healthy place to live in, I gather?" I +remarked, by way of making conversation, to the officer who was our host +at dinner that evening. His face was as yellow as old parchment and he +was shaking with fever. + +"Well," he reluctantly admitted, "you must be careful not to be bitten +by a mosquito or you will get malaria. And don't drink the water or you +will contract typhoid. And keep away from the native quarter, for there +is always more or less smallpox in the bazaars. And don't go wandering +around the town after nightfall, for there's always a chance of some +fanatic putting a knife between your shoulders. Otherwise, there isn't +a healthier place in the world than Valona." + +Across the street from the building in which we were quartered was a +large mosque, which, judging from the scaffoldings around it, was under +repair. But though it seemed to be a large and important mosque, there +was no work going forward on it. I commented upon this one day to an +officer with whom I was walking. + +"Do you see those storks up there?" he asked, pointing to a pair of +long-legged birds standing beside their nest on the dome of the mosque. +"The stork is the sacred bird of Albania and if it makes its nest on a +building which is in course of construction all work on that building +ceases as long as the stork remains. A barracks we were erecting was +held up for several months because a stork decided to make its nest in +the rafters, whereupon the native workmen threw down their tools and +quit." + +"In my country it is just the opposite," I observed. "There, when the +stork comes, instead of stopping work they usually begin building a +nursery." + +I had long wished to cross Albania and Macedonia, from the Adriatic to +the Ægean, by motor, but the nearer we had drawn to Albania the more +unlikely this project had seemed of realization. We were assured that +there were no roads in the interior of the country or that such roads as +existed were quite impassable for anything save ox-carts; that the +country had been devastated by the fighting armies and that it would be +impossible to get food en route; that the mountains we must cross were +frequented by bandits and _comitadjis_ and that we would be exposed to +attack and capture; that, though the Italians might see us across +Albania, the Serbian and Greek frontier guards would not permit us to +enter Macedonia, and, as a final argument against the undertaking, we +were warned that the whole country reeked with fever. But when I told +the Governor-General of Albania, General Piacentini, what I wished to do +every obstacle disappeared as though at the wave of a magician's wand. + +"You will leave Valona early to-morrow morning," he said, after a short +conference with his Chief of Staff. "You will be accompanied by an +officer of my staff who was with the Serbian army on its retreat across +Albania to the sea. The country is well garrisoned and I do not +anticipate the slightest trouble, but, as a measure of precaution, a +detachment of soldiers will follow your car in a motor-truck. You will +spend the first night at Argirocastro, the second at Ljaskoviki, and the +third at Koritza, which is occupied by the French. I will wire our +diplomatic agent there to make arrangements with the Jugoslav +authorities for you to cross the Serbian border to Monastir, where we +still have a few troops engaged in salvage work. South of Monastir you +will be in Greek territory, but I will wire the officer in command of +the Italian forces at Salonika to take steps to facilitate your journey +across Macedonia to the Ægean." + +This journey across one of the most savage and least-known regions in +all Europe was arranged as simply and matter-of-factly as a clerk in a +tourist bureau would plan a motor trip through the White Mountains. With +the exception of one or two alterations in the itinerary made necessary +by tire trouble, the journey was made precisely as General Piacentini +planned it and so complete were the arrangements we found that meals +and sleeping quarters had been prepared for us in tiny mountain hamlets +whose very names we had never so much as heard before. + +Until its occupation by the Italians in 1917 Albania was not only the +least-known region in Europe; it was one of the least-known regions in +the world. Within sight of Italy, it was less known than many portions +of Central Asia or Equatorial Africa. And it is still a savage country; +a land but little changed since the days of Constantine and Diocletian; +a land that for more than twenty centuries has acknowledged no master +and, until the coming of the Italians, had known no law. Prior to the +Italian occupation there was no government in Albania in the sense in +which that word is generally used, there being, in fact, no civil +government now, the tribal organization which takes its place being +comparable to that which existed in Scotland under the Stuart Kings. + +The term Albanian would probably pass unrecognized by the great majority +of the inhabitants, who speak of themselves as _Skipétars_ and of their +country as _Sccupnj_. They are, most ethnologists agree, probably the +most ancient race in Europe, there being every reason to believe that +they are the lineal descendants of those adventurous Aryans who, leaving +the ancestral home on the shores of the Caspian, crossed the Caucasus +and entered Europe in the earliest dawn of history. One of the tribes of +this migrating host, straying into these lonely valleys, settled there +with their flocks and herds, living the same life, speaking the same +tongue, following the same customs as their Aryan ancestors, quite +indifferent to the great changes which were taking place in the world +without their mountain wall. Certain it is that Albania was already an +ancient nation when Greek history began. Unlike the other primitive +populations of the Balkan peninsula, which became in time either +Hellenized, Latinized or Slavonicized, the Albanians have remained +almost unaffected by foreign influences. It strikes me as a strange +thing that the courage and determination with which this remarkable race +has maintained itself in its mountain stronghold all down the ages, and +the grim and unyielding front which it has shown to innumerable +invaders, have evoked so little appreciation and admiration in the +outside world. History contains no such epic as that of the Albanian +national hero, George Castriota, better known as Scanderbeg, who, with +his ill-armed mountaineers, overwhelmed twenty-three Ottoman armies, one +after another.[A] + +Picture, if you please, a country remarkably similar in its physical +characteristics to the Blue Ridge Region of our own South, with the same +warm summers and the same brief, cold winters, peopled by the same +poverty-stricken, illiterate, quarrelsome, suspicious, arms-bearing, +feud-practising race of mountaineers, and you will have the best +domestic parallel of Albania that I can give you. Though during the +summer months extremely hot days are followed by bitterly cold nights, +and though fever is prevalent along the coast and in certain of the +valleys, Albania is, climatically speaking, "a white man's country." Its +mountains are believed to contain iron, coal, gold, lead, and copper, +but the internal condition of the country has made it quite impossible +to investigate its mineral resources, much less to develop them. With +the exception of Valona, which has been developed into a tolerably good +harbor, there are no ports worthy of the name, Durazzo, Santi Quaranta, +and San Giovanni de Medua being mere open roadsteads, almost unprotected +from the sea winds. There are no railroads in Albania, and the +indifference of the Turkish Government, the corruption of the local +chiefs, and the blood-feuds in which the people are almost constantly +engaged, have resulted in a total absence of good roads. This condition +has been remedied by the Italians, however, who, in order to facilitate +their military operations, constructed a system of highways very nearly +equal to those they built in the Alps. Though the greater part of the +country is a stranger to the plow, the small areas which are under +cultivation produce excellent olive oil, wine of a tolerable quality, a +strong but moderately good tobacco, and considerable grain; Albania, in +spite of its primitive agricultural methods, furnishing most of the corn +supply of the Dalmatian coast. + +Albania, so far as I am aware, is the only country where you can buy a +wife on the instalment plan, just as you would buy a piano or an +encyclopedia or a phonograph. It is quite true that there are plenty of +countries where women can be purchased--in Circassia, for example, and +in China, and in the Solomon Group--but in those places the prospective +bridegroom is compelled to pay down the purchase price in cash, not +being afforded the convenience of opening an account. In Albania, +however, such things are better done, a partial payment on the purchase +price of the girl being paid to her parents when the engagement takes +place, after which she is no longer offered for sale, but is set aside, +like an article on which a deposit has been made, until the final +instalment has been paid, when she is delivered to her future husband. + +Albania is likewise the only country that I know of where every one +concerned becomes indignant if a murderer is sent to prison. The +relatives of the dear departed resent it because they feel that the +judge has cheated them out of their revenge, which they would probably +obtain, were the murderer at large, by putting a knife or a pistol +bullet between his shoulders. The murderer, of course, objects to the +sentence both because he does not like imprisonment and because he +believes that he could escape from the relatives of his victim were he +given his freedom. If he or his friends have any money, however, the +affair is usually settled on a financial basis, the feud is called off, +the murderer is pardoned, and every one concerned, save only the dead +man, is as pleased and friendly as though nothing had ever happened to +interrupt their friendly relations. A quaint people, the Albanians. + +In order to develop the resources of the country and to transform its +present poverty into prosperity, Italy has already inaugurated an +extensive scheme of public works, which includes the reclamation of the +marshes, the reforestation of the mountains, the reconstruction of the +highways, the improvement of the ports, and the construction of a +railway straight across Albania, from the coast at Durazzo to Monastir, +in Serbian Macedonia, where it will connect with the line from Belgrade +to Salonika. This railway will follow the route of one of the most +important arteries of the Roman Empire, the Via Egnatia, that mighty +military and commercial highway, a trans-Adriatic continuation of the +Via Appia, which, starting from Dyracchium, the modern Durazzo, crossed +the Cavaia plain to the Skumbi, climbed the slopes of the Candavian +range, and traversing Macedonia and Thrace, ended at the Bosphorus, thus +linking the capitals of the western and the eastern empires. We traveled +this age-old highway, down which the four-horse chariots of the Cæsars +had rumbled two thousand years ago, in another sort of chariot, with the +power of twenty times four horses beneath its sloping hood. This will +entitle us in future years to listen with the condescension of pioneers +to the tales of the tourists who make the same trans-Balkan journey in a +comfortable _wagon-lit_, with hot and cold running water and electric +lights and a dining-car ahead. It is a great thing to have seen a +country in the pioneer stage of its existence. + +In that portion of Southern Albania known as North Epirus we motored for +an entire day through a region dotted with what had been, apparently, +fairly prosperous towns and villages but which are now heaps of +fire-blackened ruins. This wholesale devastation, I was informed to my +astonishment, was the work of the Greeks, who, at about the time the +Germans were horrifying the civilized world by their conduct in +Belgium, were doing precisely the same thing, it is said, but on a far +more extensive scale, in Albania. As a result of these atrocities, +perpetrated by a so-called Christian and professedly civilized nation, a +large number of Albanian towns and villages were destroyed by fire or +dynamite. Though I have been unable to obtain any reliable figures, the +consensus of opinion among the Albanians, the French and Italian +officials, and the American missionaries and relief workers with whom I +talked is that between 10,000 and 12,000 men, women, and children were +shot, bayoneted, or burned to death, at least double that number died +from exposure and starvation, and an enormous number--I have heard the +figure placed as high as 200,000--were rendered homeless. The stories +which I heard of the treatment to which the Albanian women were +subjected are so revolting as to be unprintable. We spent a night at +Ljaskoviki (also spelled Gliascovichi, Leskovik and Liascovik), +three-quarters of which had been destroyed. Out of a population which, I +was told, originally numbered about 8,000, only 1,200 remain. + +[Illustration: THE HEAD MEN OF LJASKOVIKI, ALBANIA, WAITING TO BID MAJOR +AND MRS. POWELL FAREWELL] + +Though the great majority of the victims were Mohammedans, the +outrages were not directly due to religious causes but were inspired +mainly by greed for territory. When, upon the erection of Albania into +an independent kingdom in 1913, the Greeks were ordered by the Powers to +withdraw from North Epirus, on which they had been steadily encroaching +and which they had come to look upon as inalienably their own, they are +reported to have begun a systematic series of outrages upon the civil +population of the region for which a fitting parallel can be found only +in the Turkish massacres in Armenia or the horrors of Bolshevik rule in +Russia. In their determination to secure Southern Albania for +themselves, the Greeks apparently adopted the policy followed with such +success in Armenia by the Turks, who asserted cynically that "one cannot +make a state without inhabitants." + +I do not think that the Greeks attempt to deny these atrocities--the +evidence is far too conclusive for that--but even as great a Greek as M. +Venizelos justifies them on the ground that they were provoked by the +Albanians. That such things could happen without arousing horror and +condemnation throughout the civilized world is due to the fact that in +the summer of 1914 the attention of the world was focused on events in +France and Belgium. I have no quarrel with the Greeks and nothing is +further from my desire than to engage in what used to be known as +"muck-raking," but I am reporting what I saw and heard in Albania +because I believe that the American people ought to know of it. Taken in +conjunction with the behavior of the Greek troops in Smyrna in the +spring of 1918, it should better enable us to form an opinion as to the +moral fitness of the Greeks to be entrusted with mandates over backward +peoples. + +Though Albania is an Italian protectorate, the Albanians, in spite of +all that Italy is doing toward the development of the country, do not +want Italian protection. This is scarcely to be wondered at, however, in +view of the attitude of another untutored people, the Egyptians, who, +though they owe their amazing prosperity solely to British rule, would +oust the British at the first opportunity which offered. Though the +Italians are distrusted because the Albanians question their +administrative ability and because they fear that they will attempt to +denationalize them, the French are regarded with a hatred which I have +seldom seen equaled. This is due, I imagine, to the belief that the +French are allied with their hereditary enemies, the Greeks and the +Serbs, and to France's iron-handed rule, which was exemplified when +General Sarrail, commanding the army of the Orient, ordered the +execution of the President of the short-lived Albanian Republic which +was established at Koritza. As a matter of fact, the Albanians, though +quite unfitted for independence, are violently opposed to being placed +under the protection of any nation, unless it be the United States or +England, in both of which they place implicit trust. I was astonished to +learn that the few Americans who have penetrated Albania since the +war--missionaries, Red Cross workers, and one or two investigators for +the Peace Conference--have encouraged the natives in the belief that the +United States would probably accept a mandate for Albania. Whether they +did this in order to make themselves popular and thereby facilitate +their missions, or because of an abysmal ignorance of American public +sentiment, I do not know, but the fact remains that they have raised +hopes in the breasts of thousands of Albanians which can never be +realized. Everything considered, I think that the Albanians might do +worse than to entrust their political future to the guidance of the +Italians, who, in addition to having brought law, order, justice, and +the beginnings of prosperity to a country which never had so much as a +bowing acquaintance with any one of them before, seem to have the best +interests of the people genuinely at heart. + +Leaving Koritza, a clean, well-kept town of perhaps 10,000 people, which +was occupied when we were there by a battalion of black troops from the +French Sudan and some Moroccans, we went snorting up the Peristeri Range +by an appallingly steep and narrow road, higher, higher, always higher, +until, to paraphrase Kipling, we had + + "One wheel on the Horns o' the Mornin', + An' one on the edge o' the Pit, + An' a drop into nothin' beneath us + As straight as a beggar could spit." + +But at last, when I was beginning to wonder whether our wheels could +find traction if the grade grew much steeper, we topped the summit of +the pass and looked down on Macedonia. Below us the forested slopes of +the mountains ran down, like the folds of a great green rug lying +rumpled on an oaken floor, to meet the bare brown plains of that +historic land where marched and fought the hosts of Philip of Macedon, +and of Alexander, his son. There are few more splendid panoramas in the +world; there is none over which history has cast so magic a spell, for +this barren, dusty land has been the arena in which the races of eastern +Europe have battled since history began. Within its borders are +represented all the peoples who are disputing the reversion of the +Turkish possessions in Europe. Macedonia might be described, indeed, as +the very quintessence of the near eastern question. + +With brakes a-squeal we slipped down the long, steep gradients to +Florina, where Greek gendarmes, in British sun-helmets and khaki, +lounged at the street-crossings and patronizingly waved us past. Thence +north by the ancient highway which leads to Monastir, the parched and +yellow fields on either side still littered with the débris of +war--broken _camions_ and wagons, shattered cannon, pyramids of +ammunition-cases, vast quantities of barbed wire--and sprinkled with +white crosses, thousands and thousands of them, marking the places where +sleep the youths from Britain, France, Italy, Russia, Serbia, Canada, +India, Australia, Africa, who fell in the Last Crusade. + +Monastir is a filthy, ill-paved, characteristically Turkish town, which, +before its decimation by the war, was credited with having some 60,000 +inhabitants. Of these about one-half were Turks and one-quarter Greeks, +the remaining quarter of the inhabitants being composed of Serbs, Jews, +Albanians, and Bulgars. Those of its buildings which escaped the great +conflagration which destroyed half the town were terribly shattered by +the long series of bombardments, so that to-day the place looks like San +Francisco after the earthquake and Baltimore after the fire. In the +suburbs are immense supplies of war _matériel_ of all sorts, mostly +going to waste. I saw thousands of camions, ambulances, caissons, and +wagons literally falling apart from neglect, and this in a country which +is almost destitute of transport. Though the town was packed with +Serbian troops, most of whom are sleeping and eating in the open, no +attempt was being made, so far as I could see, to repair the shell-torn +buildings, to clean the refuse-littered streets, or to afford the +inhabitants even the most nominal police protection. The crack of rifles +and revolvers is as frequent in the streets of Monastir as the bang of +bursting tires on Fifth Avenue. A Serbian sentry, on duty outside the +house in which I was sleeping, suddenly loosed off a clip of cartridges +in the street, for no reason in the world, it seemed, than because he +liked to hear the noise! Dead bodies are found nearly every morning. +Murders are so common that they do not provoke even passing comment. In +the night there comes a sharp bark of an automatic or the shattering +roar of a hand-grenade (which, since the war proved its efficacy, has +become the most recherché weapon for private use in these regions), a +clatter of feet, and a "Hello! Another killing." That is all. Life is +the cheapest thing there is in the Balkans. + +The only really clean place we found in Monastir was the American Red +Cross Hospital, an extremely well-managed and efficient institution, +which was under the direction of a young American woman, Dr. Frances +Flood, who, with a single woman companion, Miss Jessup, pluckily +remained at her post throughout the greater part of the war. The +officers who during the war achieved rows of ribbons for having acted as +messenger boys between the War Department and the foreign military +missions in Washington, would feel a trifle embarrassed, I imagine, if +they knew what this little American woman did to win _her_ decorations. + +It is in the neighborhood of one hundred and fifty miles from Monastir +to Salonika across the Macedonian plain and the road is one of the very +worst in Europe. Deep ruts, into which the car sometimes slipped almost +to its hubs, and frequent gullies made driving, save at the most +moderate speed, impossible, while, as many of the bridges were broken, +and without signs to warn the travelers of their condition, we more than +once barely saved ourselves from plunging through the gaping openings to +disaster. The vast traffic of the fighting armies had ground the roads +into yellow dust which rose in clouds as dense as a London fog, while +the waves of heat from the sun-scorched plains beat against our faces +like the blast from an open furnace door. Despite its abominable +condition, the road was alive with traffic: droves of buffalo, black, +ungainly, broad-horned beasts, their elephant-like hides caked with +yellow mud; woolly waves of sheep and goats driven by wild mountain +herdsmen in high fur caps and gaudy sashes; caravans of camels, swinging +superciliously past on padded feet, laden with supplies for the interior +or salvaged war material for the coast; clumsy carts, painted in strange +designs and screaming colors, with great sharpened stakes which looked +as though they were intended for purposes of torture, but whose real +duty is to keep the top-heavy loads in place. + +Though the slopes of the Rhodope and the Pindus are clothed with +splendid forests, it is for the most part a flat and treeless land, +dotted with clusters of filthy hovels made of sun-dried brick and with +patches of discouraged-looking vegetation. As Macedonia (its inhabitants +pronounce it as though the first syllable were _mack_) was once the +granary of the East, I had expected to see illimitable fields of waving +grain, but such fields as we did see were generally small and poor. +Guarding them against the hovering swarms of blackbirds were many +scarecrows, rigged out in the uniforms and topped by the helmets of the +men whose bones bleach amid the grain. In Switzerland they make a very +excellent red wine called _Schweizerblut_, because the grapes from which +it is made are grown on soil reddened by the blood of the Swiss who fell +on the battlefield of Morat. If blood makes fine wine, then the best +wine in all the world should come from these Macedonian plains, for they +have been soaked with blood since ever time began. + +Our halfway town was Vodena, which seemed, after the heat and dust of +the journey, like an oasis in the desert. Scores of streams, issuing +from the steep slopes of the encircling hills, race through the town in +a network of little canals and fling themselves from a cliff, in a +series of superb cascades, into the wooded valley below. Philip of +Macedon was born near Vodena, and there, in accordance with his wishes, +he was buried. You can see the tomb, flanked by ever-burning candles, +though you may not enter it, should you happen to pass that way. He +chose his last resting-place well, did the great soldier, for the +overarching boughs of ancient plane-trees turn the cobbled streets of +the little town into leafy naves, the air is heavy with the scent of +orange and oleander, and the place murmurs with the pleasant sound of +plashing water. + +Beyond Vodena the road improved for a time and we fled southward at +greater speed, the telegraph poles leaping at us out of the yellow +dust-haze like the pikes of giant sentinels. At Alexander's Well, an +ancient cistern built from marble blocks and filled with crystal-clear +water, we paused to refill our boiling radiator, and paused again, a few +miles farther on, at the wretched, mud-walled village which, according +to local tradition, is the birthplace of the man who made himself master +of three continents, changed the face of the world, and died at +thirty-three. + +Then south again, south again, across the seemingly illimitable plains, +until, topping a range of bare brown hills, there lay spread before us +the gleaming walls and minarets of that city where Paul preached to the +Thessalonians. To the westward Olympus seemed to verify the assertions +of the ancient Greeks that its summit touched the sky. To the east, +outlined against the Ægean's blue, I could see the peninsula of +Chalkis, with its three gaunt capes, Cassandra, Longos, and Athos, +reaching toward Thrace, the Hellespont and Asia Minor, like the claw of +a vulture stretched out to snatch the quarry which the eagles killed. + +[Footnote A: Portions of this sketch of the Albanians are drawn from an +article which I wrote some years ago for _The Independent_. E.A.P.] + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +UNDER THE CROSS AND THE CRESCENT + + +Salonika is superbly situated. To gain it from the seaward side you sail +through a portal formed by the majestic peaks of Athos and Olympus. It +reclines on the bronze-brown Macedonian hills, white-clad, like a young +Greek goddess, with its feet laved by the blue waters of the Ægean. (I +have used this simile elsewhere in the book, but it does not matter.) +The scores of slender minarets which rise above the housetops belie the +crosses on the Greek flags which flaunt everywhere, hinting that the +city, though it has passed under Christian rule, is at heart still +Moslem. Indeed, barely a tenth of the 200,000 inhabitants are of the +ruling race, for Salonika is that rare thing in modern Europe, a city +whose population is by majority Jewish. There were hook-nosed, +dark-skinned traders from Judea here, no doubt, as far back as the days +when Salonika was but a way-station on the great highroad which linked +the East with Rome, but it was the Jews expelled from Spain by Ferdinand +and Isabella who transformed the straggling Turkish town into one of the +most prosperous cities of the Levant by making it their home. And to-day +the Jewish women of Salonika, the older ones at least, wear precisely +the same costume that their great-grandmother wore in Spain before the +persecution--a symbol and a reminder of how the Israelites were hunted +by the Christians before they found refuge in a Moslem land. + +There are no less than eight distinct ways of spelling and pronouncing +the city's name. To the Greeks, who are its present owners, it is +Saloniki or Saloneke, according to the method of transliterating the +_epsilon_; it is known to the Turks, who misruled it for five hundred +years, as Selanik; the British call it Salonica, with the accent on the +second syllable; the French Salonique; the Italians Salonnico, while the +Serbs refer to it as Solun. The best authorities seem to have agreed, +however, on Salonika, with the accent on the "i," which is pronounced +like "e," so that it rhymes with "paprika." But these are all +corruptions and abbreviations, for the city was originally named +Thessalonica, after the sister of Alexander of Macedon, and thus +referred to in the two epistles which St. Paul addressed to the church +he founded there. Owing to the variety of its religious sects, Salonika +has a superfluity of Sabbaths as well as of names, Friday being observed +by the Moslems, Saturday by the Jews, and Sunday by the Christians. +Perhaps it would be putting it more accurately to say that there is no +Sabbath at all, for the inhabitants are so eager to make money that +business is transacted on every day of the seven. + +Besides the great colony of Orthodox Jews in Salonika, there is a sect +of renegades known as Dounmé, or Deunmeh, who number perhaps 20,000 in +all. These had their beginnings in the _Annus Mirabilis_, when a Jewish +Messiah, Sabatai Sevi of Smyrna, arose in the Levant. He preached a +creed which was a first cousin of those believed in by our own +Anabaptists and Seventh Day Adventists. The name and the fame of him +spread across the Near East like fire in dry grass. Every ghetto in +Turkey had accepted him; his ritual was adopted by every synagogue; the +Jews gave themselves over to penance and preparation. For a year honesty +reigned in the Levant. Then the prophet set out for Constantinople to +beard the Sultan in his palace and, so he announced, to lead him in +chains to Zion. That was where Sabatai Sevi made his big mistake. For +the Commander of the Faithful was from Missouri, so far as Sabatai +Sevi's claims to divinity were concerned. + +"Messiahs can perform miracles," the Sultan said. "Let me see you +perform one. My Janissaries shall make a target of you. If you are of +divine origin, as you claim, the arrows will not harm you. And, in any +event, it will be an interesting experiment." + +[Illustration: THE ANCIENT WALLS OF SALONIKA + +Before us we saw the yellow walls and crenellated towers of that city +where Paul preached to the Thessalonians] + +Now Sabatai evidently had grave doubts about his self-assumed divinity +being arrow-proof, for he protested vigorously against the proposal to +make a human pin-cushion of him, whereupon the Sultan, his suspicions +now confirmed, gave him his choice between being impaled upon a stake, a +popular Turkish pastime of the period, or of renouncing Judaism and +accepting the faith of Islam. Preferring to be a live coward to an +impaled martyr, he chose the latter, yet such was his influence with +the Jews that thousands of his adherents voluntarily embraced the +religion of Mohammed. The Dounmé of Salonika are the descendants of +these renegades. Two centuries of waiting have not dimmed their faith in +the eventual coming of their Messiah. So there they wait, equally +distrusted by Jews and Moslems, though they form the wealthiest portion +of the city's population. But they live apart and so dread any mixing of +their blood with that of the infidel Turk or the unbelieving Jew that, +in order to avoid the risk of an unwelcome proposal, they make a +practise of betrothing their children before they are born. It strikes +me, however, that there must on occasion be a certain amount of +embarrasment connected with these early matches, as, for example, when +the prenatally engaged ones prove to be of the same sex. + +I used to be of the opinion that Tiflis, in the Caucasus, was the most +cosmopolitan city that I had ever seen, but since the war I think that +the greatest variety of races could probably be found in Salonika. Sit +at a marble-topped table on the pavement in front of Floca's café at +the tea-hour and you can see representatives of half the races in the +world pass by--British officers in beautifully polished boots and +beautifully cut breeches, astride of beautifully groomed ponies; +Highlanders with their kilts covered by khaki aprons; raw-boned, +red-faced Australians in sun helmets and shorts; swaggering _chausseurs +d'Afrique_ in wonderful uniforms of sky-blue and scarlet which you will +find nowhere else outside a musical comedy; soldiers of the Foreign +Legion with the skirts of their long blue overcoats pinned back and with +mushroom-shaped helmets which are much too large for them; soldierly, +well set-up little Ghurkas in broad-brimmed hats and uniforms of olive +green, reminding one for all the world of fighting cocks; Sikhs in +yellow khaki (did you know, by the way, that _khaki_ is the Hindustani +word for dust?) with their long black beards neatly plaited and rolled +up under their chins; Epirotes wearing the starched and plaited skirts +called _fustanellas_, each of which requires from twenty to forty yards +of linen; Albanian tribal chiefs in jackets stiff with gold embroidery, +with enough weapons thrust in their gaudy sashes to decorate a +club-room; Cretan gendarmes wearing breeches which are so tight below +the knee and so enormously baggy in the seat that they can, and when +they are in Crete frequently do, use them in place of a basket for +carrying their poultry, eggs or other farm produce to market; coal-black +Senegalese, coffee-colored Moroccans and tan-colored Algerians, all +wearing the broad red cummerbunds and the high red tarbooshes which +distinguish France's African soldiery; Italian _bersaglieri_ with great +bunches of cocks' feathers hiding their steel helmets; Serbs in +ununiform uniforms of every conceivable color, material and pattern, +their only uniform article of equipment being their characteristic +high-crowned _képis_; Russians in flat caps and belted blouses, their +baggy trousers tucked into boots with ankles like accordions; officers +of Cossack cavalry, their tall and slender figures accentuated by their +long, tight-fitting coats and their high caps of lambskin; Bulgar +prisoners wearing the red-banked caps which they have borrowed from +their German allies and Austrian prisoners in worn and shabby uniforms +of grayish-blue; Greek soldiers bedecked like Christmas trees with +medals, badges, fourragéres and chevrons, in the hope, I suppose, that +their gaudiness would make up for their lack of prowess; Orthodox +priests with their long hair (for they never cut their hair or beards) +done up in Psyche knots; Hebrew rabbis wearing caps of velvet shaped +like those worn by bakers; Moslem muftis with their snowy turbans +encircled by green scarves as a sign that they had made the pilgrimage +to the Holy Places; Jewish merchants and money-changers in the same +black caps and greasy gabardines which their ancestors wore in the +Middle Ages; British, French, Italian and American bluejackets with +their caps cocked jauntily and the roll of the sea in their gait; +A.R.A., A.R.C., Y.M.C.A., K. of C. and A.C.R.N.E. workers in fancy +uniforms of every cut and color; Turkish sherbet-sellers with huge brass +urns, hung with tinkling bells to give notice of their approach, slung +upon their backs; ragged Macedonian bootblacks (bootblacking appeared to +be the national industry of Macedonia), and hordes of gipsy beggars, the +filthiest and most importunate I have ever seen. All day long this +motley, colorful crowd surges through the narrow streets, their voices, +speaking in a score of tongues, raising a din like that of Bedlam; the +smells of unwashed bodies, human perspiration, strong tobacco, rum, +hashish, whiskey, arrack, goat's cheese, garlic, cheap perfumery and +sweat-soaked leather combining in a stench which rises to high Heaven. + +On the streets one sees almost as many colored soldiers as white ones: +French native troops from Algeria, Morocco, Madagascar, Senegal and +China; British Indian soldiery from Bengal, the Northwest Provinces and +Nepaul. The Indian troops were superbly drilled and under the most iron +discipline, but the French native troops appeared to be getting out of +hand and were not to be depended upon. To a man they had announced that +they wanted to go home. They had been through four and a half years of +war, they are tired and homesick, and they are more than willing to let +the Balkan peoples settle their own quarrels. They were weary of +fighting in a quarrel of which they knew little and about which they +cared less; they longed for a sight of the wives and the children they +had left behind them in Fez or Touggourt or Timbuktu. Because they had +been kept on duty in Europe, while the French white troops were being +rapidly demobilized and returned to their homes, the Africans were +sullen and resentful. This smoldering resentment suddenly burst into +flame, a day or so before we reached Salonika, when a Senegalese +sergeant, whose request to be sent home had been refused, ran amuck, +barricaded himself in a stone outhouse with a plentiful supply of rifles +and ammunition, and succeeded in killing four officers and half-a-dozen +soldiers before his career was ended by a well-aimed hand grenade. A few +days later a British officer was shot and killed in the camp outside the +city by a Ghurka sentinel. This was not due to mutiny, however, but, on +the contrary, to over-strict obedience to orders, the sentry having been +instructed that he was to permit no one to cross his post without +challenging. The officer, who was fresh from England and had had no +experience with the discipline of Indian troops, ignored the order to +halt--and the next day there was a military funeral. + +Salonika is theoretically under Greek rule and there are pompous, +self-important little Greek policemen, perfect replicas of the British +M.P.'s in everything save physique and discipline, on duty at the street +crossings, but instead of regulating the enormous flow of traffic they +seem only to obstruct it. When the congestion becomes so great that it +threatens to hold up the unending stream of motor-lorries which rolls +through the city, day and night, between the great cantonments in the +outskirts and the port, a tall British military policeman suddenly +appears from nowhere, shoulders the Greek gendarme aside, and with a few +curt orders untangles the snarl into which the traffic has gotten itself +and sets it going again. + +Picturesque though Salonika undeniably is, with its splendid mosques, +its beautiful Byzantine churches, its Roman triumphal arches, and the +brooding bulk of Mount Olympus, which overshadows and makes trivial +everything else, yet the strongest impressions one carries away are +filth, corruption and misgovernment. These conditions are due in some +measure, no doubt, to the refusal of the European troops, with whom the +city is filled, to take orders from any save their own officers, but the +underlying reason is to be found in the indifference and gross +incompetence of the Greek authorities. The Greeks answer this by saying +that they have not had time to clean the city up and give it a decent +administration because they have owned it only eight years. All of the +European business quarter, including a mile of handsome buildings along +the waterfront, lies in ruins as a result of the great fire of 1917. +Though a system of new streets has been tentatively laid out across this +fire-swept area, no attempt has been made to rebuild the city, hundreds +of shopkeepers carrying on their businesses in shacks and booths erected +amid the blackened and tottering walls. All of the hotels worthy of the +name were destroyed in the fire, the two or three which escaped being +quite uninhabitable, at least for Europeans, because of the armies of +insects with which they are infested. I do not recall hearing any one +say a good word for Salonika. The pleasantest recollection which I +retain of the place is that of the steamer which took us away from +there. + +Before we could leave Salonika for Constantinople our passports had to +be viséd by the representatives of five nations. In fact, travel in the +Balkans since the war is just one damn visé after another. The Italians +stamped them because we had come from Albania, which is under Italian +protection. The Serbs put on their imprint because we had stopped for a +few days in Monastir. The Greeks affixed their stamp--and collected +handsomely for doing so--because, theoretically at least, Salonika, +whose dust we were shaking from our feet, belongs to them. The French +insisted on viséing our papers in order to show their authority and +because they needed the ten francs. The British control officer told me +that I really didn't need his visé, but that he would put it on anyway +because it would make the passports look more imposing. Because we were +going to Constantinople and Bucharest, whereas our passports were made +out for "the Balkan States," the American Consul would not visé them at +all, on the ground that neither Turkey nor Roumania is in the Balkans. +About Roumania he was technically correct, but I think most geographers +place European Turkey in the Balkans. As things turned out, however, it +was all labor lost and time thrown away, for we landed in Constantinople +as untroubled by officials and inspectors as though we were stepping +ashore at Twenty-third Street from a Jersey City ferry. + +There were no regular sailings from Salonika for Constantinople, but, +by paying a hundred dollars for a ticket which in pre-war days cost +twenty, we succeeded in obtaining passage on an Italian tramp steamer. +The _Padova_ was just such a cargo tub as one might expect to find +plying between Levantine ports. Though we occupied an officer's cabin, +for which we were charged _Mauretania_ rates, it was very far from being +as luxurious as it sounds, for I slept upon a mattress laid upon three +chairs and the mattress was soiled and inhabited. Still, it was very +diverting, after an itching night, to watch the cockroaches, which were +almost as large as mice, hurrying about their duties on the floor and +ceiling. Huddled under the forward awnings were two-score deck +passengers--Greeks, Turks, Armenians and Roumanians. Sprawled on their +straw-filled mattresses, they loafed the hot and lazy days away in +playing cards, eating the black bread, olives and garlic which they had +brought with them, smoking a peculiarly strong and villainous tobacco, +and torturing native musical instruments of various kinds. At night a +young Turk sang plaintive, quavering laments to the accompaniment of a +sort of guitar, some of the others occasionally joining in the mournful +chorus. I found my chief recreation, when it grew too dark to read, in +watching an Orthodox priest, who was one of the deck-passengers, prepare +for the night by combing and putting up his long and greasy hair. +Another of the deck-passengers was a rather prosperous-looking, +middle-aged Levantine who had been in America making his fortune, he +told me, and was now returning to his wife, who lived in a little +village on the Dardanelles, after an absence of sixteen years. She had +no idea that he was coming, he said, as he had planned to surprise her. +Perhaps he was the one to be surprised. Sixteen years is a long time for +a woman to wait for a man, even in a country as conservative as Turkey. + +The officers of the _Padova_ talked a good deal about the mine-fields +that still guarded the approaches to the Dardanelles and the possibility +that some of the deadly contrivances might have broken loose and drifted +across our course. In order to cheer us up the captain showed us the +charts, on which the mined areas were indicated by diagonal shadings, +little red arrows pointing the way between them along channels as +narrow and devious as a forest trail. To add to our sense of security he +told us that he had never been through the Dardanelles before, adding +that he did not intend to pick up a pilot, as he considered their +charges exorbitant. At the base of the great mine-field which lies +across the mouth of the Straits we were hailed by a British patrol boat, +whose choleric commander bellowed instructions at us, interlarded with +much profanity, through a megaphone. The captain of the _Padova_ could +understand a few simple English phrases, if slowly spoken, but the +broadside of Billingsgate only confused and puzzled him, so, despite the +fact that he had no pilot and that darkness was rapidly descending, he +kept serenely on his course. This seemed to enrage the British skipper, +who threw over his wheel and ran directly across our bows, very much as +one polo player tries to ride off another. + +"You ---- fool!" he bellowed, fairly dancing about his quarter-deck with +rage. "Why in hell don't you stop when I tell you to? Don't you know +that you're running straight into a mine-field? Drop anchor alongside me +and do it ---- quick or I'll take your ---- license away from you. And +I don't want any of your ---- excuses, either. I won't listen to 'em." + +"What he say?" the captain asked me. "I not onderstan' hees Engleesh +ver' good." + +"No, you wouldn't," I told him. "He's speaking a sort of patois, you +see. He wants to know if you will have the great kindness to drop anchor +alongside him until morning, for it is forbidden to pass through the +mine-fields in the dark, and he hopes that you will have a very pleasant +night." + +Five minutes later our anchor had rumbled down off Sed-ul-Bahr, under +the shadow of Cape Helles, the tip of that rock, sun-scorched, +blood-soaked peninsula which was the scene of that most heroic of +military failures--the Gallipoli campaign. Above us, on the bare brown +hillside, was what looked, in the rapidly deepening twilight, like a +patch of driven snow, but upon examining it through my glasses I saw +that it was a field enclosed by a rude wall and planted thickly with +small white wooden crosses, standing row on row. Then I remembered. It +was at the foot of these steep and steel-swept bluffs that the Anzacs +made their immortal landing; it is here, in earth soaked with their own +blood, that they lie sleeping. The crowded dugouts in which they dwelt +have already fallen in; the trenches which they dug and which they held +to the death have crumbled into furrows; their bones lie among the rocks +and bushes at the foot of that dark and ominous hill on whose slopes +they made their supreme sacrifice. Leaning on the rail of the deserted +bridge in the darkness and the silence it seemed as though I could see +their ghosts standing amid the crosses on the hillside staring longingly +across the world toward that sun-baked Karroo of Australia and to the +blue New Zealand mountains which they called "Home." It was a night +never to be forgotten, for the glassy surface of the Ægean glowed with +phosphorescence, the sky was like a hanging of purple velvet, and the +peak of our foremast seemed almost to graze the stars. Across the +Hellespont, to the southward, the sky was illumined by a ruddy glow--a +village burning, so a sailor told me, on the site of ancient Troy. And +then there came back to me those lines from Agamemnon which I had +learned as a boy: + + _"Beside the ruins of Troy they lie buried, those men so beautiful; + there they have their burial-place, hidden in an enemy's land!"_ + +We got under way at daybreak and, picking our way as cautiously as a +small boy who is trying to get out of the house at night without +awakening his family, we crept warily through the vast mine-field which +was laid across the entrance to the Dardanelles, past Sed-ul-Bahr, whose +sandy beach is littered with the rusting skeletons of both Allied and +Turkish warships and transports; past Kalid Bahr, where the high bluffs +are dotted with the ruins of Turkish forts destroyed by the shell-fire +of the British dreadnaughts on the other side of the peninsula and with +the remains of other forts which were destroyed in the Crusaders' times; +past Chanak, where the steep hill-slopes behind the town were white with +British tents, and so into the safe waters of the Marmora Sea. Though I +was perfectly familiar with the topography of the Gallipoli Peninsula, +as well as with the possibilities of modern naval guns, I was astonished +at the evidences, which we saw along the shore for miles, of the +extraordinary accuracy of the fire of the British fleet. Virtually all +the forts defending the Dardanelles were bombarded by indirect fire, +remember, the whole width of the peninsula separating them from the +fleet. To get a mental picture of the situation you must imagine +warships lying in the East River firing over Manhattan Island in an +attempt to reduce fortifications on the Hudson. Men who were in the +Gallipoli forts during the bombardment told me that, though they were +prevented by the rocky ridge which forms the spine of the peninsula from +seeing the British warships, and though, for the same reason, the +gunners on the ships could not see the forts, the great steel +calling-cards of the British Empire came falling out of nowhere as +regularly and with as deadly precision as though they were being fired +at point-blank range. + +The successful defense of the Dardanelles, one of the most brilliantly +conducted defensive operations of the entire war, was primarily due to +the courage and stubborn endurance of Turkey's Anatolian soldiery, +ignorant, stolid, hardy, fearless peasants, who were taken straight from +their farms in Asia Minor, put into wretchedly made, ill-fitting +uniforms, hastily trained by German drillmasters, set down in the +trenches on the Gallipoli ridge and told to hold them. No one who is +familiar with the conditions under which these Turkish soldiers fought, +who knows how wretched were the conditions under which they lived, who +has seen those waterless, sun-seared ridges which they held against the +might of Britain's navy and the best troops which the Allies could bring +against them, can withhold from them his admiration. Their valor was +deserving of a better cause. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +WILL THE SICK MAN OF EUROPE RECOVER? + + +Each time that I have approached Constantinople from the Marmora Sea and +have watched that glorious and fascinating panorama--Seraglio Point, St. +Sophia, Stamboul, the Golden Horn, the Galata Bridge, the heights of +Pera, Dolmabagtche, Yildiz--slowly unfold, revealing new beauties, new +mysteries, with each revolution of the steamer's screw, I have declared +that in all the world there is no city so lovely as this capital of the +Caliphs. Yet, beautiful though Constantinople is, it combines the moral +squalor of Southern Europe with the physical squalor of the Orient to a +greater degree than any city in the Levant. Though it has assumed the +outward appearance of a well-organized and fairly well administered +municipality since its occupation by the Allies, one has but to scratch +this thin veneer to discover that the filth and vice and corruption and +misgovernment which characterized it under Ottoman rule still remain. +Barring a few municipal improvements which were made in the European +quarter of Pera and in the fashionable residential districts between +Dolmabagtche and Yildiz, the Turkish capital has scarcely a bowing +acquaintance with modern sanitation, the windows of some of the finest +residences in Stamboul looking out on open sewers down which refuse of +every description floats slowly to the sea or takes lodgment on the +banks, these masses of decaying matter attracting great swarms of +pestilence-breeding flies. The streets are thronged with women whose +virtue is as easy as an old shoe, attracted by the presence of the +armies as vultures are attracted by the smell of carrion. Saloons, +brothels, dives and gambling hells run wide open and virtually +unrestricted, and as a consequence venereal diseases abound, though the +British military authorities, in order to protect their own men, have +put the more notorious resorts "out of bounds" and, in order to provide +more wholesome recreations for the troops, have opened amusement parks +called "military gardens." In spite of the British, French, Italian and +Turkish military police who are on duty in the streets, stabbing +affrays, shootings and robberies are so common that they provoke but +little comment. Petty thievery is universal. Hats, coats, canes, +umbrellas disappear from beside one's chair in hotels and restaurants. +The Pera Palace Hotel has notices posted in its corridors warning the +guests that it is no longer safe to place their shoes outside their +doors to be polished. The streets, always wretchedly paved, have been +ground to pieces by the unending procession of motor-lorries, and, as +they are never by any chance repaired, the first rain transforms them +into a series of hog-wallows. The most populous districts of Pera, of +Galata, and of Stamboul are now disfigured by great areas of +fire-blackened ruins--reminders of the several terrible conflagrations +from which the Turkish capital has suffered in recent years. "Should the +United States decide to accept the mandate for Constantinople," a +resident remarked to me, "these burned districts would give her an +opportunity to start rebuilding the city on modern sanitary lines" and, +he might have added, at American expense. + +The prices of necessities are fantastic and of luxuries fabulous. The +cost of everything has advanced from 200 to 1,200 per cent. The price of +a meal is no longer reckoned in piastres but in Turkish pounds, though +this is not as startling as it sounds, for the Turkish _lira_ has +dropped to about a quarter of its normal value. Quite a modest dinner +for two at such places as Tokatlian's, the Pera Palace Hotel, or the +Pera Gardens, costs the equivalent of from fifteen to twenty dollars. +Everything else is in proportion. From the "Little Club" in Pera to the +Galata Bridge is about a seven minutes' drive by carriage. In the old +days the standard tariff for the trip was twenty-five cents. Now the +cabmen refuse to turn a wheel for less than two dollars. + +Speaking of money, the chief occupation of the traveler in the Balkans +is exchanging the currency of one country for that of another: lira into +dinars, dinars into drachmæ, drachmæ into piastres, piastres into leva, +leva into lei, lei into roubles (though no one ever exchanges his money +for roubles if he can possibly help it), roubles into kronen, and kronen +into lire again. The idea is to leave each country with as little as +possible of that country's currency in your possession. It is like +playing that card game in which you are penalized for every heart you +have left in your hand. + +"But how is the Sick Man?" I hear you ask. + +He is doing very nicely, thank you. In fact, he appears to be steadily +improving. There was a time, shortly after the Armistice, when it seemed +certain that he would have to submit to an operation, which he probably +would not have survived, but the surgeons disagreed as to the method of +operating and now it looks as though he would get well in spite of them. +He has a chill every time they hold a consultation, of course, but he +will probably escape the operation altogether, though he may have to +take some extremely unpleasant medicine and be kept on a diet for +several years to come. He has remarkable recuperative powers, you know, +and his friends expect to see him up and about before long. + +That may sound flippant, as it is, but it sums up in a single paragraph +the extraordinary political situation which exists in Turkey to-day. +Little more than a year ago Turkey surrendered in defeat, her resources +exhausted, her armies destroyed or scattered. If anything in the world +seemed certain at that time it was that the redhanded nation, whose very +name has for centuries been a synonym for cruelty and oppression, would +disappear from the map of Europe, if not from the map of the world, at +the behest of an outraged civilization. The Turkish Government committed +the most outrageous crime of the entire war when it organized the +systematic extermination of the Armenians. Its former Minister of War, +Enver Pasha, has been quoted as cynically remarking, "If there are no +more Armenians there can be no Armenian question." A people capable of +such barbarity ought no longer be permitted to sully Europe with their +presence: they ought to be driven back into those savage Anatolian +regions whence they came and kept there, just as those suffering from a +less objectionable form of leprosy are confined on Molokai. But the +fervor of a year ago for expelling the Turks from Europe is rapidly +dying down. In the spring of 1919 Turkey could have been partitioned by +the Allies with comparatively little friction. No one expected it more +than Turkey herself. Whenever she heard a step on the floor, a knock at +the door, she keyed herself for the ordeal of the anesthetic and the +operating table. But the ancient jealousies and rivalries of the Entente +nations, which had been forgotten during the war, returned with peace +and now it looks as though, as a result of these nations' distrust and +suspicion of each other, the Turks would win back by diplomacy what they +lost in battle. How History repeats itself! The Turks have often been +unlucky in war and then had a return of luck at the peace table. It was +so after the Russo-Turkish War, when the Congress of Berlin tore up the +Treaty of San Stefano. It was so to a lesser extent after the Balkan +wars, when the interference of the European Concert enabled Turkey to +recover Adrianople and a portion of the Thracian territory which she had +lost to Bulgaria. And now it looks as though she were once again to +escape the punishment she so richly merits. If she does, then History +will chronicle few more shameful miscarriages of justice. + +If the people of the United States could know for a surety of the +avarice, the selfishness, the cynicism which have marked every step of +the negotiations relative to the settlement of the Near Eastern +Question, if they were aware of the chicanery and the deceit and the low +cunning practised by the European diplomatists, I am convinced that +there would be an irresistible demand that we withdraw instantly from +participation in the affairs of Southeastern Europe and of Western Asia. +Why not look the facts in the face? Why not admit that these affairs +are, after all, none of our concern, and that, by every one save the +Turks and the Armenians, our attempted dictation is resented. In the +language of the frontier, we have butted into a game in which we are not +wanted. It is no game for up-lifters or amateurs. England, France, Italy +and Greece are not in this game to bring order out of chaos but to +establish "spheres of influence." They are not thinking about +self-determination and the rights of little peoples and making the world +safe for Democracy; they are thinking in terms of future commercial and +territorial advantage. They are playing for the richest stakes in the +history of the world: for the control of the Bosphorus and the Bagdad +Railway--for whoever controls them controls the trade routes to India, +Persia, and the vast, untouched regions of Transcaspia; the commercial +domination of Western Asia, and the overlordship of that city which +stands at the crossroads of the Eastern World and its political capital +of Islam. + +In order better to appreciate the subtleties of the game which they are +playing, let us glance over the shoulders of the players, and get a +glimpse of their hands. Take England to begin with. Unless I am greatly +mistaken, England is not in favor of a complete dismemberment of Turkey +or the expulsion of the Sultan from Constantinople. This is a complete +_volte face_ from the sentiment in England immediately after the war, +but during the interim she has heard in no uncertain terms from her +100,000,000 Mohammedan subjects in India, who look on the Turkish Sultan +as the head of their religion and who would resent his humiliation as +deeply, and probably much more violently, than the Roman Catholics would +resent the humiliation of the Pope. British rule in India, as those who +are in touch with Oriental affairs know, is none too stable, and the +last thing in the world England wants to do is to arouse the hostility +of her Moslem subjects by affronting the head of their faith. England +will unquestionably retain control of Mesopotamia for the sake of the +oil wells at the head of the Persian Gulf, the control which it gives +her of the eastern section of the Bagdad Railway, and because of her +belief that scientific irrigation will once more transform the plains of +Babylonia into one of the greatest wheat-producing regions in the world. +She may, and probably will, keep her oft-repeated promises to the Jews +by erecting Palestine into a Hebrew kingdom under British protection, if +for no other reason than its value as a buffer state to protect Egypt. +She will also, I assume, continue to foster and support the policy of +Pan-Arabism, as expressed In the new Kingdom of the Hedjaz, not alone +for the reason that control of the Arabian peninsula gives her complete +command of the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf as well as a highroad from +Egypt to her new protectorate of Persia, but because she hopes, I +imagine, that her protege, the King of Hedjaz, as Sheriff of Mecca, will +eventually supplant the Sultan as the religious head of Islam. (It is +interesting to note, in passing, that, as a result of the protectorates +which she has proclaimed over Mesopotamia, Palestine, Arabia and Persia, +England has, as a direct result of the war, obtained control of new +territories in Asia alone having an area greater than that of all the +states east of the Mississippi put together, with a population of some +20,000,000.) Though England would unquestionably welcome the United +States accepting a mandate for Constantinople, which would ensure the +neutrality of the Bosphorus, and for Armenia, which, under American +protection, would form a stabilized buffer state on Mesopotamia's +northern border, I am convinced that, even if the United States refuses +such mandates, the British Government will oppose the serious +humiliation of the Sultan-Khalif, or the complete dismemberment of his +dominions. + +The latest French plan is to establish an independent Turkey from +Adrianople to the Taurus Mountains, lopping off Syria, which will become +a French protectorate, and Mesopotamia and Palestine, which will remain +under British control. + +Constantinople, according to the French view, must remain independent, +though doubtless the freedom of the Straits would be assured by some +form of international control. France is not particularly enthusiastic +about the establishment of an independent Armenia, for many French +politicians believe that the interests of the Armenians can be +safeguarded while permitting them to remain under the nominal suzerainty +of Turkey, but she will oppose no active objections to Armenian +independence. But there must be no crusade against the Turkish +Nationalists who are operating in Asia Minor and no pretext given for +Nationalist massacres of Greeks and Armenians. And the Sultan must +retain the Khalifate and his capital in Constantinople, for, according +to the French view, it is far better for the interests of France, who +has nearly 30,000,000 Moslem subjects of her own, to have an independent +head of Islam at Constantinople, where he would be to a certain extent +under French influence, than to have a British-controlled one at Mecca. +The truth of the matter is that France is desperately anxious to protect +her financial interests in Turkey, which are already enormous, and she +knows perfectly well that her commercial and financial ascendency on +the Bosphorus will suddenly wane if the Empire should be dismembered. +That is the real reason why she is cuddling up to the Sick Man. Being +perfectly aware that neither England nor Italy would consent to her +becoming the mandatary for Constantinople, she proposes to do the next +best thing and rule Turkey in the future, as in the past, through the +medium of her financial interests. Sophisticated men who have read the +remarkable tributes to Turkey which have been appearing in the French +press, and its palliation of her long list of crimes, have been aware +that something was afoot, but only those who have been on the inside of +recent events realize how enormous are the stakes, and how shrewd and +subtle a game France is playing. + +Strictly speaking, Italy is not one of the claimants to Constantinople. +Not that she does not want it, mind you, but because she knows that +there is about as much chance of her being awarded such a mandate as +there is of her obtaining French Savoy, which she likewise covets. Under +no conceivable conditions would France consent to the Bosphorus passing +under Italian control; according to French views, indeed, Italy is +already far too powerful in the Balkans. Recognizing the hopelessness of +attempting to overcome French opposition, Italy has confined her claims +to the great rich region of Cilicia, which roughly corresponds to the +Turkish vilayet of Adana, a rich and fertile region in southern Asia +Minor, with a coast line stretching from Adana to Alexandretta. Cilicia, +I might mention parenthetically, is usually included in the proposed +Armenian state, and Armenians have anticipated that Alexandretta would +be their port on the Mediterranean, but, while the peacemakers at Paris +have been discussing the question, Italy has been pouring her troops +into this region, having already occupied the hinterland as far back as +Konia. Italy's sole claim to this region is that she wants it and that +she is going to take it while the taking is good. There are, it is true, +a few Italians along the coast, there are some Italian banks, and +considerable Italian money has been invested in various local projects, +but the population is overwhelmingly Turkish. But, as the Italians point +out in defending this piece of land-grabbing, Article 22 of the Covenant +of the League of Nations expressly states that the wishes of people not +yet civilized need not be considered. + +Let us now consider the claims of Greece as a reversionary of the Sick +Man's estate. Considering their attitude during the early part of the +war (for it is no secret that General Sarrail's operations in Macedonia +were seriously hampered by his fear that Greece might attack him in the +rear) and the paucity of their losses in battle, the Greeks have done +reasonably well in the game of territory grabbing. Do you realize, I +wonder, the full extent of the Hellenic claims? Greece asks for (1) the +southern portion of Albania, known as North Epirus; (2) for the whole of +Bulgarian Thrace, thus completely barring Bulgaria from the Ægean; (3) +for the whole of European Turkey, including the Dardanelles and +Constantinople; (4) for the province of Trebizond, on the southern shore +of the Black Sea, the Greek inhabitants of which attempted to establish +the so-called Pontus Republic; (5) the great seaport of Smyrna, with its +400,000 inhabitants, and a considerable portion of the hinterland, which +she has already occupied; (6) the Dodecannessus Islands, of which the +largest is Rhodes, off the western coast of Asia Minor, which the +Italians occupied during the Turco-Italian War and which they have not +evacuated; (7) the cession of Cyprus by England, which has administered +it since 1878. Greece's modest demands might be summed up in the words +of a song which was popular in the United States a dozen years ago and +which might appropriately be adopted by the Greeks as their national +anthem: + + "All I want is fifty million dollars, + A champagne fountain flowing at my feet; + J. Pierpont Morgan waiting at the table, + And Sousa's band a-playing while I eat." + +I will be quite candid in saying that I have small sympathy for Greece's +claims to these territories, not because she is not entitled to them on +the ground of nationality--for there is no denying that, in all of the +regions in question, save only Albania and Thrace, Greeks form a +majority of the Christian inhabitants--but because she is not herself +sufficiently advanced to be entrusted with authority over other races, +particularly over Mohammedans. The atrocities committed by Greek troops +on the Moslems of Albania and of Smyrna, to say nothing of the behavior +of the Greek bands in Macedonia during the Balkan wars, should be +sufficient proof of her unfitness to govern an alien race. I have +already spoken in some detail of the reported Greek outrages in Albania. +But this was not an isolated instance of the methods employed in +"Hellenizing" Moslem populations. In the spring of 1919 the Peace +Conference, hypnotized, apparently, by M. Venizelos, who is one of the +ablest diplomats of the day, made the mistake of permitting Greek +forces, unaccompanied by other troops, to land at Smyrna. Almost +immediately there began an indiscriminate slaughter of Turkish officials +and civilians, in retaliation, so the Greeks assert, for the massacre of +Greeks by Turks in the outlying districts. The obvious answer to this is +that, while the Greeks claim that they are a civilized race, they assert +that the Turks are not. The outcry against the Greeks on this occasion +was so great that an inter-allied commission, including American +representatives, was appointed to make a thorough investigation. This +commission unanimously found the Greeks guilty of the unprovoked +massacre of 800 Turkish men, women and children, who were shot down in +cold blood while being marched along the Smyrna waterfront, those who +were not killed instantly being thrown by Greek soldiers into the sea. +High handed and outrageous conduct by Greek troops in the towns and +villages back of Smyrna was also proved. I do not require any further +testimony as to the unwisdom of placing Mohammedans under Greek control, +but, if I did, I have the evidence of Mr. Hamlin, the son of the founder +of Roberts College, who was born in the Levant, who speaks both Turkish +and Greek, and who was sent to Smyrna by the Greek government as an +investigator and adviser. He told me that the Greek attitude toward the +Moslems was highly provocative and overbearing and that the Allies were +guilty of criminal negligence when they permitted the Greeks to land at +Smyrna alone. + +Though they know that their dream of restoring Hellenic rule over +Byzantium cannot be realized, the Greeks are bitterly opposed to the +United States receiving a mandate for Constantinople. The extent of +Greek hostility toward the United States is not appreciated in America, +yet I found traces of it everywhere in the Levant. A widespread Greek +propaganda has laid the responsibility for Greece's failure to get the +whole of Thrace at the door of the United States. To this accusation has +been added the charge that Americans were foremost in creating sentiment +against the Greek massacres in Smyrna, which, the Greeks contend, was +merely an unfortunate incident and should be overlooked. All sorts of +extraordinary reasons are advanced for America's alleged hostility to +Greek claims, ranging from the charge that our attitude is inspired by +the missionaries (for the Orthodox Church has always opposed the +presence of American missionaries in Greek lands) to commercial +ambition. As one leading Greek paper put it, "Alongside of America's +greed and schemes for commercial expansion since the war, Germany's +imperialism was pure idealism." + +[Illustration: YILDIZ KIOSK, THE FAVORITE PALACE OF ABDUL-HAMID AND HIS +SUCCESSORS ON THE THRONE OF OSMAN + +The building in the foreground, known as the Ambassador's Pavilion, is +only a small portion of the great Palace which in Abdul-Hamid's time +housed upward of 10,000 persons] + +And now a few words as to the attitude of Turkey herself, for she has, +after all, a certain interest in the matter. The Turks are perfectly +resigned to accepting either America, England or France as mandatary, +though they would much prefer America, provided that European Turkey, +Anatolia and Armenia are kept together, for they realize that Syria, +Mesopotamia and Arabia, whose populations are overwhelmingly Arab, are +lost to them forever. What they would most eagerly welcome would be an +American mandate for European Turkey and the whole of Asia Minor, +including Armenia. This would keep out the Greeks, whom they hate, and +the Italians, whom they distrust, and it would keep intact the most +valuable portion of the Empire and the part for which they have the +deepest sentimental attachment. Most Turks believe that, with America as +the mandatary power, the country would not only benefit enormously +through the railways, roads, harbor works, agricultural projects, +sanitary improvements and financial reforms which would be carried out +at American expense, as in the Philippines, but that, should the Turks +behave themselves and demonstrate an ability for self-government, +America would eventually restore their complete independence, as she has +promised to restore that of the Filipinos. But if they find that +Constantinople and Armenia are to be taken away from them, then I +imagine that they would vigorously oppose any mandatary whatsoever. And +they could make a far more effective opposition than is generally +believed, for, though Constantinople is admittedly at the mercy of the +Allied fleet in the Bosphorus, the Nationalist are said to have +recruited a force numbering nearly 300,000 men, composed of well-trained +and moderately well equipped veterans of the Gallipoli campaign, which +is concentrated in the almost inaccessible regions of Central Anatolia. +Moreover, Enver Pasha, the former Minister of War and leader of the +Young Turk party, who, it is reported, has made himself King of +Kurdistan, is said to be in command of a considerable force of Turks, +Kurds and Georgians which he has raised for the avowed purpose of ending +the troublesome Armenian question by exterminating what is left of the +Armenians, and by effecting a union of the Turks, the Kurds, the +Mohammedans of the Caucasus, the Persians, the Tartars and the Turkomans +into a vast Turanian Empire, which would stretch from the shores of the +Mediterranean to the borders of China. Though the realization of such a +scheme is exceedingly improbable, it is by no means as far-fetched or +chimerical as it sounds, for Enver is bold, shrewd, highly intelligent +and utterly unscrupulous and to weld the various races of his proposed +empire he is utilizing an enormously effective agency--the fanatical +faith of all Moslems in the future of Islam. Neither England nor France +have any desire to stir up this hornet's nest, which would probably +result in grave disorders among their own Moslem subjects and which +would almost certainly precipitate widespread massacres of the +Christians in Asia Minor, for the sake of dismembering Turkey and +ousting the Sultan. + +I have tried to make it clear that there is nothing which the Turks so +urgently desire as for the United States to take a mandate for the whole +of Turkey. Those who are in touch with public opinion in this country +realize, of course, that the people of the United States would never +approve of, and that Congress would never give its assent to such an +adventure, yet there are a considerable number of well-informed, able +and conscientious men--former Ambassador Henry Morgenthau and President +Henry King of Oberlin, for example--who give it their enthusiastic +support. And they are backed up by a host of missionaries, commercial +representatives, concessionaires and special commissioners of one sort +and another. When I was in Constantinople the European colony in that +city was watching with interest and amusement the maneuvers of the Turks +to bring the American officials around to accepting this view of the +matter. They "rushed" the rear admiral who was acting as American High +Commissioner and his wife as the members of a college fraternity "rush" +a desirable freshman. And, come to think of it, most of the American +officials who were sent out to investigate and report on conditions in +Turkey are freshmen when it comes to the complexities of Near Eastern +affairs. This does not apply, of course, to such men as Consul-General +Ravndal at Constantinople, Consul-General Horton at Smyrna, Dr. Howard +Bliss, President of the Syrian Protestant College at Beirut, and certain +others, who have lived in the Levant for many years and are intimately +familiar with the intricacies of its politics and the characters of its +peoples. But it does apply to those officials who, after hasty and +personally conducted tours through Asiatic Turkey, or a few months' +residence in the Turkish capital, are accepted as "experts" by the Peace +Conference and by the Government at Washington. When I listen to their +dogmatic opinions on subjects of which most of them were in abysmal +ignorance prior to the Armistice, I am always reminded of a remark once +made to me by Sir Edwin Pears, the celebrated historian and authority on +Turkish affairs. "I don't pretend to understand the Turkish character," +Sir Edwin remarked dryly, "but, you see, I have lived here only forty +years." + +It is an interesting and altruistic scheme, this proposed regeneration +at American expense of a corrupt and decadent empire, but in their +enthusiasm its supporters seem to have overlooked several obvious +objections. In the first place, though both England and France are +perfectly willing to have the United States accept a mandate for +European Turkey, Armenia and even Anatolia, I doubt if England would +welcome with enthusiasm a proposal that she should evacuate Palestine +and Mesopotamia, the conquest of which has cost her so much in blood and +gold, or whether France would consent to renounce her claims to Syria, +of which she has always considered herself the legatee. As for Italy and +Greece, I imagine that it would prove as difficult to oust the one from +Adalia and the other from Smyrna as it has been to oust the Poet from +Fiume. Secondly, such a mandate would mean the end of Armenia's dream of +independence, for, though she might be given a certain measure of +autonomy, and though she would, of course, no longer be exposed to +Turkish massacres, she would enjoy about as much real independence under +such an arrangement as the native states of India enjoy under the +British Raj. Lastly, nothing is further from our intention, if I know +the temper of my countrymen, than to assume any responsibility in order +to resurrect the Turk, nor are we interested in preserving the integrity +of Turkey in any guise, shape or form. Instead of perpetuating the +unspeakable rule of the Osmanli, we should assist in ending it forever. + +And now we come to the question of accepting a mandate for Armenia. In +order to get a mental picture of this foundling which we are asked to +rear you must imagine a country about the size of North Dakota, with +Dakota's cold winters and scorching summers, consisting of a dreary, +monotonous, mile-high plateau with grass-covered, treeless mountains +and watered by many rivers, whose valleys form wide strips of arable +land. Rising above the general level of this Armenian tableland are +barren and forbidding ranges, broken by many gloomy gorges, which +culminate, on the extreme northeast, in the mighty peak of Ararat, the +traditional resting-place of the Ark. Armenia is completely hemmed in by +alien and potentially hostile races. On the northeast are the wild +tribes of the Caucasus; on the east are the Persians, who, though not +hostile to Armenian aspirations, are of the faith of Islam; along +Armenia's southern border are the Kurds, a race as savage, as cruel and +as relentless as were the Apaches of our own West; on the east is +Anatolia, with its overwhelmingly Ottoman population. Before the war the +Armenians in the six Turkish vilayets--Trebizond, Erzeroum, Van, Bitlis, +Mamuret-el-Aziz and Diarbekir--numbered perhaps 2,000,000, as compared +with about 700,000 Turks. But there is no saying how many Armenians +remain, for during the past five years the Turks have perpetrated a +series of wholesale massacres in order to be able to tell the Christian +Powers, as a Turkish official cynically remarked, that "one cannot make +a state without inhabitants." + +As just and accurate an estimate of the Armenian character as any I have +read is that written by Sir Charles William Wilson, perhaps the foremost +authority on the subject, for the Encyclopædia Britannica: "The +Armenians are essentially an Oriental people, possessing, like the Jews, +whom they resemble in their exclusiveness and widespread dispersion, a +remarkable tenacity of race and faculty of adaptation to circumstances. +They are frugal, sober, industrious and intelligent and their sturdiness +of character has enabled them to preserve their nationality and religion +under the sorest trials. They are strongly attached to old manners and +customs but have also a real desire for progress which is full of +promise. On the other hand they are greedy of gain, quarrelsome in small +matters, self-seeking and wanting in stability; and they are gifted with +a tendency to exaggeration and a love of intrigue which has had an +unfortunate effect on their history. They are deeply separated by +religious differences and their mutual jealousies, their inordinate +vanity, their versatility and their cosmopolitan character must always +be an obstacle to a realization of the dreams of the nationalists. The +want of courage and selfreliance, the deficiency in truth and honesty +sometimes noticed in connection with them, are doubtless due to long +servitude under an unsympathetic government." + +It seems to me that it is time to subordinate sentiment to common sense +in discussing the question of Armenia. I have known many Armenians and I +have the deepest sympathy for the woes of that tragic race, but if the +Armenians are in danger of extermination their fate is a matter for the +Allies as a whole, or for the League of Nations, if there ever is one, +but not for the United States alone. To administer and police Armenia +would probably require an army corps, or upwards of 50,000 men, and I +doubt if a force of such size could be raised for service in so remote +and inhospitable a region without great difficulty. My personal opinion +is that the Armenians, if given the necessary encouragement and +assistance, are capable of governing themselves. Certainly they could +not govern themselves more wretchedly than the Mexicans, yet there has +been no serious proposal that the United States should take a mandate +for Mexico. Everything considered, I am convinced that the highest +interests of Armenia, of America, and of civilization would be best +served by making Armenia an independent state, having much the same +relation to the United States as Cuba. Let us finance the Armenian +Republic by all means, let us lend it officers to organize its +gendarmerie and teachers for its schools, let us send it agricultural +and sanitary and building and financial experts, and let us give the +rest of the world, particularly the Turks, to understand that we will +tolerate no infringement of its sovereignly. Do that, set the Armenians +on their feet, safeguard them politically and financially, and then +leave them to work out their own salvation. + +Though prophesying is a dangerous business, and likely to lead to +embarrassment and chagrin for the prophet, I am willing to hazard a +guess that the future maps of what was once the Ottoman Dominions will +be laid out something after this fashion: Mesopotamia will be tinted +red, because it will be British. Palestine will also be under Britain's +ægis--a little independent Hebrew state, not much larger than Panama. +Under the word "Syria" will appear the inscription "French +Protectorate." The Adalia region will be designated "Italian Sphere of +Influence," while Smyrna and its immediate hinterland will probably be +labeled "Greek Sphere." Across the northeastern corner of Asia Minor +will be spread the words "Republic of Armenia" and beneath, in +parentheses, "Independence guaranteed by the United States." The whole +of Anatolia, save the Greek and Italian fringes just mentioned, will be +occupied and ruled by the Turks, for it is their ancestral home. The +fortifications along the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus will be leveled +and they, with Constantinople, will be under some form of international +control, with equal rights for all nations. But, unless I am very much +mistaken, the Turks will _not_ be driven out of Europe, as has so long +been predicted; the Ottoman Government will not retire to Brusa, in Asia +Minor, but will continue to function in Stamboul, and the Sultan, as the +religious head of Islam, will still dwell in the great white palace atop +of Yildiz hill. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +WHAT THE PEACE-MAKERS HAVE DONE ON THE DANUBE + + +When I called upon M. Bratianu, the Prime Minister of Rumania, who was +in Paris as a delegate to the Peace Conference, I opened the +conversation by innocently remarking that I proposed to spend some weeks +in his country during my travels in the Balkans. But I got no further, +for M. Bratianu, whose tremendous shoulders and bristling black beard +make him appear even larger than he is, sprang to his feet and brought +his fist crashing down upon the table. + +"You ought to know better than that, Major Powell," he angrily +exclaimed. "Rumania is not in the Balkans and never has been. We object +to being called a Balkan people." + +I apologized for my slip, of course, and amicable relations were +resumed, but I mention the incident as an illustration of how deeply +the Rumanians resent the inclusion of their country in that group of +turbulent kingdoms which compose what some one has aptly called the +Cockpit of Europe. The Rumanians are as sensitive in this respect as are +the haughty and aristocratic Creoles, inordinately proud of their French +or Spanish ancestry, when some ignorant Northerner remarks that he had +always supposed that Creoles were part negro. Not only is Rumania not +one of the Balkan states, geographically speaking, but the Rumanians' +idea of their country's importance has been enormously increased as a +result of its recent territorial acquisitions, which have made it the +sixth largest country in Europe, with an area very nearly equal to that +of Italy and with a population three-fourths that of Spain. You were not +aware, perhaps, that the width of Greater Rumania, from east to west, is +as great as the width of France from the English Channel to the +Mediterranean. One has to break into a run to keep pace with the march +of geography these days. + +Owing to the demoralization prevailing in Thrace and Bulgaria, railway +communications between Constantinople and the Rumanian frontier were so +disorganized that we decided to travel by steamer to Constantza, taking +the railway thence to Bucharest. Before the war the Royal Rumanian mail +steamer _Carol I_ was as trim and luxuriously fitted a vessel as one +could have found in Levantine waters. For more than a year, however, she +was in the hands of the Bolsheviks, so that when we boarded her her +sides were red with rust, her cabins had been stripped of everything +which could be carried away, and the straw-filled mattresses, each +covered with a dubious-looking blanket, were as full of unwelcome +occupants as the Black Sea was of floating mines. + +[Illustration: THE RED BADGE OF MERCY IN THE BALKANS + +American Red Cross women supplying food to a ship-load of starving +Russian refugees at Constantza, Rumania] + +Constantza, the chief port of Rumania, is superbly situated on a +headland overlooking the Black Sea. It has an excellent harbor, bordered +on one side by a number of large grain elevators and on the other by a +row of enormous petroleum tanks--the latter the property of an American +corporation; a mile or so of asphalted streets, several surprisingly +fine public buildings, and, on the beautifully terraced and landscaped +waterfront, an imposing but rather ornate casino and many luxurious +summer villas, most of which were badly damaged when the city was +bombarded by the Bulgars. Constantza is a favorite seaside resort for +Bucharest society and during the season its _plage_ is thronged with +summer visitors dressed in the height of the Paris fashion. From atop +his marble pedestal in the city's principal square a statue of the Roman +poet Ovid, who lived here in exile for many years, looks quizzically +down upon the light-hearted throng. + +It is in the neighborhood of 150 miles by railway from Constantza to +Bucharest and before the war the Orient Express used to make the journey +in less than four hours. Now it takes between twenty and thirty. We made +a record trip, for our train left Constantza at four o'clock in the +morning and pulled into Bucharest shortly before midnight. It is only +fair to explain, however, that the length of time consumed in the +journey was due to the fact that the bridge across the Danube near +Tchernavoda, which was blown up by the Bulgars, had not been repaired, +thus necessitating the transfer of the passengers and their luggage +across the river on flat-boats, a proceeding which required several +hours and was marked by the wildest confusion. So few trains are +running in the Balkans that there are never enough, or nearly enough, +seats to accommodate all the passengers, so that fully as many ride on +the roofs of the coaches as inside. This has the advantage, in the eyes +of the passengers, of making it impracticable for the conductor to +collect the fares, but it also has certain disadvantages. During our +trip from Constantza to Bucharest three roof passengers rolled off and +were killed. + +As a result of the lengthy occupation of the city by the Austro-Germans, +and their systematic removal of machinery and industrial material of +every description, everything is out of order in Bucharest. Water, +electric lights, gas, telephones, elevators, street-cars "_ne marche +pas_." Though we had a large and beautifully furnished room in the +Palace Hotel we had to climb three flights of stairs to reach it, the +light was furnished by candles, the water for the bathroom was brought +in buckets, and, as the Germans had removed the wires of the +house-telephones, we had to go into the hall and shout when we required +a servant. Yet the almost total lack of conveniences does not deter the +hotels from making the most exorbitant charges. Bucharest has always +been an expensive city but to-day the prices are fantastic. At Capsa's, +which is the most fashionable restaurant, it is difficult to get even a +modest lunch for two for less than twelve dollars. But, notwithstanding +the destruction of the nation's chief source of wealth, its oil wells, +by the Rumanians themselves, in order to prevent their use by the enemy, +and the systematic looting of the country by the invaders, there seems +to be no lack of money in Bucharest, for the restaurants are filled to +the doors nightly, there is a constant fusillade of champagne corks, and +in the various gardens, all of which have cabaret performances, the +popular dancers are showered with silver and notes. In fact, a customary +evening in Bucharest is not very far removed, in its gaiety and abandon, +from a New Year's Eve celebration in New York. Not even Paris can offer +a gayer night life than the Rumanian capital, for at the Jockey Club it +is no uncommon thing for 10,000 francs to change hands on the turn of a +card or a whirl of the roulette wheel; out the Chaussée Kisselew, at the +White City, the dance floor is crowded until daybreak with slender, +rather effeminate-looking officers in beautiful uniforms of green or +pale blue and superbly gowned and bejewelled women. Indeed, I doubt if +there is any city of its size in the world on whose streets one sees so +many _chic_ and beautiful women, though I might add that their jewels +are generally of a higher quality than their morals. As long as these +bewitching beauties behave themselves they are not molested by the +police, who seem to have an arrangement with the hotel managements +looking toward their control. When Mrs. Powell and I arrived at our +hotel the proprietor asked us for our passports, which, he explained, +must be viséd by the police. The following morning my passport was +returned alone. + +"But where is my wife's passport?" I demanded, for in Southern Europe in +these days it is impossible to travel even short distances without one's +papers. + +"But M'sieu must know that we always retain the lady's passport until he +leaves," said the proprietor, with a knowing smile. "Then, should she +disappear with M'sieu's watch, or his money, or his jewels, she will not +be able to leave the city and the police can quickly arrest her. Yes, +it is the custom here. A neat idea, _hein_?" + +Though I succeeded in obtaining the return of Mrs. Powell's passport I +am not at all certain that I succeeded in entirely convincing the +_hôtelier_ that she really was my wife. + +Rumania is at present passing through a period of transition. Not only +have the area and population of the country been more than doubled, but +the war has changed all other conditions and the new forms of national +life are still unsettled. In the summer of 1918 even the most optimistic +Rumanians doubted if the nation would emerge from the war with more than +a fraction of its former territory, yet to-day, as a result of the +acquisition of Transylvania, Bessarabia and the eastern half of the +Banat, the country's population has risen from seven to fourteen +millions and its area from 50,000 to more than 100,000 square miles. The +new conditions have brought new laws. Of these the most revolutionary is +the law which forbids landowners to retain more than 1,000 acres of +their land, the government taking over and paying for the residue, which +is given to the peasants to cultivate. As a result of this policy, +there have been practically no strikes or labor troubles in Rumania, +for, now that most of their demands have been conceded, the Rumanian +peasants seem willing to seek their welfare in work instead of +Bolshevism. Heretofore the Jews, though liable to military service, have +not been permitted a voice in the government of their country, but, as a +result of recent legislation, they have now been granted full civil +rights, though whether they will be permitted to exercise them is +another question. The Jews, who number upwards of a quarter of a +million, have a strangle hold on the finances of the country and they +must not be permitted, the Rumanians insist, to get a similar grip on +the nation's politics. It is only very recently, indeed, that Rumanian +Jews have been granted passports, which meant that only those rich +enough to obtain papers by bribery could enter or leave the country. The +Rumanians with whom I discussed the question said quite frankly that the +legislation granting suffrage to the Jews would probably be observed +very much as the Constitutional Amendment granting suffrage to the +negroes is observed in our own South. + +The truth of the matter is that Rumania is in the hands of a clique of +selfish and utterly unscrupulous politicians who have grown rich from +their systematic exploitation of the national resources. Every bank and +nearly every commercial enterprise of importance is in their hands. One +of the present ministers entered the cabinet a poor man; to-day he is +reputed to be worth twenty millions. Anything can be purchased in +Rumania--passports, exemption from military service, cabinet portfolios, +commercial concessions--if you have the money to pay for it. The fingers +of Rumanian officials are as sticky as those of the Turks. An officer of +the American Relief Administration told me that barely sixty per cent, +of the supplies sent from the United States for the relief of the +Rumanian peasantry ever reached those for whom they were intended; the +other forty per cent, was kept by various officials. To find a parallel +for the political corruption which exists throughout Rumania it is +necessary to go back to New York under the Tweed administration or to +Mexico under the Diaz régime. + +From a wealthy Hungarian landowner, with whom I traveled from Bucharest +to the frontier of Jugoslavia, I obtained a graphic idea of what can be +accomplished by money in Rumania. This young Hungarian, who had been +educated in England and spoke with a Cambridge accent, possessed large +estates in northeastern Hungary. After four years' service as an officer +of cavalry he was demobilized upon the signing of the Armistice. When +the revolution led by Bela Kun broke out in Budapest he escaped from +that city on foot, only to be arrested by the Rumanians as he was +crossing the Rumanian frontier. Fortunately for him, he had ample funds +in his possession, obtained from the sale of the cattle on his estate, +so that he was able to purchase his freedom after spending only three +days in jail. But his release did not materially improve his situation, +for he had no passport and, as Hungary was then under Bolshevist rule, +he was unable to obtain one. And he realized that without a passport it +would be impossible for him to join his wife and children, who were +awaiting him in Switzerland. As luck would have it, however, he was +slightly acquainted with the prefect of a small town in +Transylvania--for obvious reasons I shall not mention its name--which he +finally reached after great difficulty, traveling by night and lying +hidden by day so as to avoid being halted and questioned by the Rumanian +patrols. By paying the prefect 1,000 francs and giving him and his +friends a dinner at the local hotel, he obtained a certificate stating +that he was a citizen of the town and in good standing with the local +authorities. Armed with this document, which was sufficient to convince +inquisitive border officials of his Rumanian nationality, he took train +for Bucharest, where he spent five weeks dickering for a Rumanian +passport which would enable him to leave the country. Including the +bribes and entertainments which he gave to officials, and gifts of one +sort and another to minor functionaries, it cost him something over +25,000 francs to obtain a passport duly viséd for Switzerland. But my +friend's anxieties did not end there, for a Rumanian leaving the country +was not permitted to take more than 1,000 francs in currency with him, +those suspected of having in their possession funds in excess of this +amount being subjected to a careful search at the frontier. My friend +had with him, however, something over 500,000 francs, all that he had +been able to realize from his estates. How to get this sum out of the +country was a perplexing problem, but he finally solved it by concealing +the notes, which were of large denomination, in the bottom of a box of +expensive face powder, which, he explained to the officials at the +frontier, he was taking as a present to his wife. When the train drew +into the first Serbian station and he realized that he was beyond the +reach of pursuit, he capered up and down the platform like a small boy +when school closes for the long vacation. + +Considerable astonishment seems to have been manifested by the American +press and public at the disinclination of Rumania and Jugoslavia to sign +the treaty with Austria without reservations. Yet this should scarcely +occasion surprise, for the attitude of the great among the Allies toward +the smaller brethren who helped them along the road to victory has been +at times blameworthy, often inexplicable, and on frequent occasions +arrogant and tactless. At the outset of the Peace Conference some +endeavor was made to live up to the promises so loudly made that +henceforth the rights of the weak were to receive as much attention as +those of the strong. Commissions were formed to study various aspects of +the questions involved in the peace and upon these the representatives +of the smaller nations were given seats. But this did not last long. +Within a month Messrs. Wilson, Lloyd-George, Clémenceau and Orlando had +made themselves virtually the dictators of the Peace Conference, +deciding behind closed doors matters of vital moment to the national +welfare of the small states without so much as taking them into +consultation. Prime Minister Bratianu, who went to Paris as the head of +the Rumanian peace delegation, told me, his voice hoarse with +indignation, that the "Big Four," in settling Rumania's future +boundaries, had not only not consulted him but that he had not even been +informed of the terms decided upon. "They hand us a fountain pen and say +'Sign here,'" the Premier exclaimed, "and then they are surprised if we +refuse to affix our signatures to a document which vitally concerns our +national future but about which we have never been consulted." + +We Americans, of all peoples, should realize that a small nation is as +jealous of its independence as a large one. As a matter of fact, Rumania +and her sister-states of Southeastern Europe, who still bear the scars +of Turkish oppression, are super-sensitive in this respect, the fact +that they have so often been the victims of intriguing neighbors making +them more than ordinarily suspicious and resentful toward any action +which tends to limit their mastery of their own households. Hence they +regard that clause of the Treaty of St. Germain providing for the +protection of ethnical minorities with an indignation which cannot +easily be appreciated by the Western nations. The boundaries of the new +and aggrandized states of Southeastern Europe will necessarily include +alien minorities--this cannot be avoided--and the Peace Conference held +that the welfare of such minorities must be the special concern of the +League of Nations. Take the case of Rumania, for example. In order to +unite her people she must annex some compact masses of aliens which, in +certain cases at least, have been deliberately planted within +ethnological frontiers for a specific purpose. The settlements of +Magyars in Transylvania, who, under Hungarian rule, were permitted to +exploit their Rumanian neighbors without let or hindrance, will not +willingly surrender the privileges they have so long enjoyed and submit +to a régime of strict justice and equality. On the other hand, Rumania +can scarcely be expected to agree to an arrangement which would not only +impair her sovereignty but would almost certainly encourage intrigue and +unrest among these alien minorities. How would the United States regard +a proposal to submit its administration of the Philippines to +international control? How would England like the League of Nations to +take a hand in the government of Ireland? That, briefly stated, is the +reason why both Rumania and Jugoslavia objected so strongly to the +inclusion of the so-called racial minorities clause in the Treaty of St. +Germain. Looking at the other side of the question, it Is easy to +understand the solicitude which the treaty-makers at Paris displayed for +the thousands of Magyars, Serbs and Bulgars who, without so much as a +by-your-leave, they have placed under Rumanian rule. No less authority +than Viscount Bryce has made the assertion that in Transylvania alone +(which, by the way, has an area considerably greater than all our New +England states put together), which has been taken over by Rumania, +fully a third of the population has no affinity with the Rumanians. +Similarly, there are whole towns in the Dobrudja which are composed of +Bulgarians, there are large groups of Russian Slavs in Bessarabia, and +considerable colonies of Jugoslavs in the eastern half of the Banat +which, very much against their wishes, have been forced to submit to +Rumanian rule. Whether, now that the tables are turned, the Rumanians +will put aside their ancient animosities and prejudices and give these +new and unwilling citizens every privilege which they themselves enjoy, +is a question which only the future can solve. + +Another question, which has agitated Rumania even more violently than +that of the racial minorities clause, was the demand made by the Great +Powers that the Rumanian army be withdrawn from Hungary and that the +livestock and agricultural implements of which that unhappy country was +stripped by the Rumanian forces be immediately returned. Here is the +Rumanian version: Hungary went Bolshevist and assumed a hostile +attitude toward Rumania, Czechoslovakia and Jugoslavia, the three +countries which will benefit by her dismemberment according to the +principle of nationality. Hungary attacked these countries by arms and +by anarchistic propaganda. The Rumanians, the Czechoslovaks and the +Jugoslavs, wishing to defend themselves, asked permission of the Supreme +Council to deal drastically with the Hungarian menace. The reply, which +was late in coming, was couched in vague and unsatisfactory language. +Emboldened by the vacillatory attitude of the Powers, the Hungarians +began a military offensive, invading Czechoslovakia and crossing the +lines of the Armistice in Rumania and Jugoslavia. In order to prevent a +spread of this Bolshevist movement the three countries prepared to +occupy Hungary with troops, whereupon a command came from the Supreme +Council in Paris that such aggression would not be tolerated. This +encouraged Bela Kun, the Hungarian Trotzky, and made him so popular that +he succeeded in raising a Red army with which he crossed the River +Theiss and invaded Rumania. Whereupon the Rumanian army, being unable to +obtain support from the Supreme Council, pushed back the Hungarians, +occupied Budapest, overthrew Bela Kun's administration and restored +order in Hungary. But the Supreme Council, feeling that its authority +had been ignored by the little country, sent several messages to the +Rumanian Government peremptorily ordering it to withdraw its troops +immediately from Hungary. Here endeth the Rumanian version. + +Now the real reason which actuated the Supreme Council was not that it +felt that its authority had been slighted, but because it was informed +by its representatives in Hungary that the Rumanians had not stopped +with ousting Bela Kun and suppressing Bolshevism, but were engaged in +systematically looting the country, driving off thousands of head of +livestock, and carrying away all the machinery, rolling stock, telephone +and telegraph wires and instruments and metalwork they could lay their +hands on, thereby completely crippling the industries of Hungary and +depriving great numbers of people of employment. The Rumanians retorted +that the Austro-German armies had systematically looted Rumania during +their three years of occupation and that they were only taking back +what belonged to them. The Hungarians, while admitting that Rumania had +been pretty thoroughly stripped of animals and machinery by von +Mackensen's armies, asserted that this loot had not remained in Hungary +but had been taken to Germany, which was probably true. The Supreme +Council took the position that the animals and material which the +Rumanians were rushing out of Hungary in train-loads was not the sole +property of Rumania, but that it was the property of all the Allies, and +that the Supreme Council would apportion it among them in its own good +time. The Council pointed out, furthermore, that if the Rumanians +succeeded in wrecking Hungary industrially, as they were evidently +trying to do, it would be manifestly impossible for the Hungarians to +pay any war indemnity whatsoever. And finally, that a bankrupt and +starving Hungary meant a Bolshevist Hungary and that there was already +enough trouble of that sort in Eastern Europe without adding to it. The +Rumanians proving deaf to these arguments, the Supreme Council sent +three messages, one after the other, to the Bucharest government, +ordering the immediate withdrawal from Hungarian soil of the Rumanian +troops. Yet the Rumanian troops remained in Budapest and the looting of +Hungary continued, the Rumanian government declaring that the messages +had never been received. Meanwhile every one in the kingdom, from +Premier to peasant, was laughing in his sleeve at the helplessness of +the Supreme Council. But they laughed too soon. For the Supreme Council +wired to the Food Administrator, Herbert Hoover, who was in Vienna, +informing him of the facts of the situation, whereupon Mr. Hoover, who +has a blunt and uncomfortably direct way of achieving his ends, sent a +curt message to the Rumanian government informing it that, if the orders +of the Supreme Council were not immediately obeyed, he would shut off +its supplies of food. _That_ message produced action. The troops were +withdrawn. I can recall no more striking example of the amazing changes +brought about in Europe by the Great War than the picture of this +boyish-faced Californian mining engineer coolly giving orders to a +European government, and having those orders promptly obeyed, after the +commands of the Great Powers had been met with refusal and derision. To +take a slight liberty with the lines of Mr. Kipling-- + + _"The Kings must come down and the Emperors frown + When Herbert Hoover says 'Stop!'"_ + +Up to that time the United States had been immensely popular in Rumania. +But Mr. Hoover's action made us about as popular with the Rumanians as +the smallpox. He and we were charged with being actuated by the most +despicable and sordid motives. The King himself told me that he was +convinced that Mr. Hoover was in league with certain great commercial +interests which wished to take their revenge for their failure to obtain +commercial concessions of great value in Rumania. A cabinet minister, in +discussing the incident with me, became so inarticulate with rage that +he could scarcely talk at all. + +But the United States is not the only country which has lost the +confidence of the Rumanians. France is even more deeply distrusted and +disliked than we are. And this in spite of the fact that the upper +classes of Rumania have held up the French as their ideal for the past +fifty years. Indeed, wealthy Rumanians live in a fashion more French +than if they dwelt in Paris itself. This sudden unpopularity of the +French is due to several causes. After having expected much of them, the +people were amazed and bitterly disappointed at their apparent +indifference toward the future of Rumania. Then there were the +unfortunate incidents at Odessa, the withdrawal of the French forces +from that city before the advance of the Bolsheviks, and the regrettable +happening in the French Black Sea fleet These things, of course, +contributed to loss of French prestige. Another contributory factor has +been the lack of enterprise of French capitalists, causing those who +control the financial and economic development of Rumania to seek +encouragement and assistance elsewhere. But the underlying reason for +the deep-seated distrust of France is to be found, I think, in France's +attempt to maintain the balance of power in Southeastern Europe by +building up a strong Jugoslavia. Now the Rumanians, it must be +remembered, hate the Jugoslavs even more bitterly than they hate the +Hungarians--and they are far more afraid of them. This hatred is not +merely the result of the age-long antagonism between the Latin and the +Slav; it is also political. The Rumanians have watched with growing +jealousy and apprehension the expansion of Serbia into a state with a +population and area nearly equal to their own. After having long dreamed +of the day when they would themselves be arbiters of the destinies of +the nations of Southeastern Europe, they see their political supremacy +challenged by the new Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, behind +which they discern the power and influence of France. When the +dismemberment of the Austro-Hungarian Empire began, Rumania demanded and +expected the whole of the great rich province of the Banat, with the +Maros River for her northern and the Danube for her southern frontier. + +"But that would place our capital within range of the Rumanian +artillery," the Serbian prime minister is said to have exclaimed. + +"Then move your capital," the Rumanian premier responded drily. + +As a result of this controversy over the Banat the relations of the two +nations have been strained almost to the breaking-point. When I was in +the Banat in the autumn of 1919 the Rumanian and Serbian frontier +guards were glowering at each other like fighting terriers held in +leash, and the slightest untoward incident would have precipitated a +conflict! Although, by the terms of the Treaty of St. Germain, +Jugoslavia was awarded the western half of the Banat, Rumania is +prepared to take advantage of the first opportunity which presents +itself to take it away from her rival. When I was in Bucharest a cabinet +minister concluded a lengthy exposition of Rumania's position by +declaring: + +"Within the next two or three years, in all probability, there will be a +war between Jugoslavia and Italy over the Dalmatian question. The day +that Jugoslavia goes to war with Italy we will attack Jugoslavia and +seize the Banat. The Danube is Rumania's natural and logical frontier." + +This would seem to bear out the assertion that there exists a secret +alliance between Italy and Rumania, which, if true, would place +Jugoslavia in the unhappy position of a nut between the jaws of a +cracker. I have also been told on excellent authority that there is +likewise an "understanding" between Italy and Bulgaria that, should the +former become engaged in a war with the Jugoslavs, the latter will +attack the Serbs from the east and regain her lost provinces in +Macedonia. A pleasant prospect for Southeastern Europe, truly. + +While we were in Bucharest we received an invitation--"command" is the +correct word according to court usage--to visit the King and Queen of +Rumania at their Château of Pelesch, near Sinaia, in the Carpathians. It +is about a hundred miles by road from the capital to Sinaia and the +first half of the journey, which we made by motor, was over a road as +execrable as any we found in the Balkans. Upon reaching the foothills of +the Carpathians, however, the highway, which had been steadily growing +worse, suddenly took a turn for the better--due, no doubt, to the +invigorating qualities of the mountain atmosphere--and climbed +vigorously upward through wild gorges and splendid pine forests which +reminded me of the Adirondacks of Northern New York. Notwithstanding the +atrocious condition of the highway, which constantly threatened to +dislocate our joints as well as those of the car, and the choking, +blinding clouds of yellow dust, every change of figure on the +speedometer brought new and interesting scenes. For mile after mile the +road, straight as though marked out by a ruler, ran between fields of +wheat and corn as vast as those of our own West. In spite of the fact +that the Austro-Germans carried off all the animals and farming +implements they could lay their hands on, the agricultural prosperity of +Rumania is astounding. In 1916, for example, while involved in a +terribly destructive war, Rumania produced more wheat than Minnesota and +about twenty-five times as much corn as our three Pacific Coast states +combined. At frequent intervals we passed huge scarlet threshing +machines, most of them labeled "Made in U.S.A.," which were centers of +activity for hundreds of white-smocked peasants who were hauling in the +grain with ox-teams, feeding it into the voracious maws of the machines, +and piling the residue of straw into the largest stacks I have ever +seen. As we drew near the mountains the grain fields gave way to grazing +lands where great herds of cattle of various breeds--brindled milch +animals, massive cream-colored oxen, blue-gray buffalo with elephant +like hides and broad, curving horns, and gaunt steers that looked for +all the world like Texas longhorns--browsed amid the lush green grass. + +Though the villages of the Wallachian plain are few and far between, and +though it is no uncommon thing for a peasant to walk a dozen miles from +his home to the fields in which he works, the whole region seemed a-hum +with industry. The Rumanian peasant, like his fellows below the Danube, +is, as a rule, a good-natured, easy-going though easily excited, +reasonably honest and extremely industrious fellow who labors from dawn +to darkness in six days of the week and spends the seventh in harmless +village carouses, chiefly characterized by dancing, music and the cheap +native wine. Rumania is one of the few countries in Europe where the +peasants still dress like the pictures on the postcards. The men wear +curly-brimmed shovel hats of black felt, like those affected by English +curates, and loose shirts of white linen, whose tails, instead of being +tucked into the trousers, flap freely about their legs, giving them the +appearance of having responded to an alarm of fire without waiting to +finish dressing. On Sundays and holidays men and women alike appear in +garments covered with the gorgeous needlework for which Rumania is +famous, some of the women's dresses being so heavily embroidered in gold +and silver that from a little distance the wearers look as though they +were enveloped in chain mail. A considerable and undesirable element of +Rumania's population consists of gipsies, whence their name of Romany, +or Rumani. The Rumanian gipsies, who are nomads and vagrants like their +kinsmen in the United States, are generally lazy, quarrelsome, dishonest +and untrustworthy, supporting themselves by horse-trading and +cattle-stealing or by their flocks and herds. We stopped near one of +their picturesque encampments in order to repair a tire and I took a +picture of a young woman with a child in her arms, but when I declined +to pay her the five lei she demanded for the privilege, she flew at me +like an angry cat, screaming curses and maledictions. But her picture +was not worth five lei, as you can see for yourself. + +[Illustration: A PEASANT OF OLD SERBIA + +The Serbian peasant is simple, kindly, hospitable, honest, and generous, +and, though he could not be described ... as a hard worker, his wife +invariably is] + +[Illustration: THE GYPSY WHO DEMANDED FIVE LEI FOR THE PRIVILEGE OF +TAKING HER PICTURE] + +The Castle of Pelesch is just such a royal residence as Anthony Hope has +depicted in _The Prisoner of Zenda_. It gives the impression, at first +sight, of a confusion of turrets, gables, balconies, terraces, +parapets and fountains, but one quickly forgets its architectural +shortcomings in the beauty of its surroundings. It stands amid velvet +lawns and wonderful rose gardens in a sort of forest glade, from which +the pine-clothed slopes of the Carpathians rise steeply on every side, +the beam-and-plaster walls, the red-tiled roofs, and the blazing gardens +of the château forming a striking contrast to the austerity of the +mountains and the solemnity of the encircling forest. + +We had rather expected to be presented to Queen Marie with some +semblance of formality in one of the reception rooms of the château, but +she sent word by her lady-in-waiting that she would receive us in the +gardens. A few minutes later she came swinging toward us across a great +stretch of rolling lawn, a splendid figure of a woman, dressed in a +magnificent native costume of white and silver, a white scarf partially +concealing her masses of tawny hair, a long-bladed poniard in a silver +sheath hanging from her girdle. At her heels were a dozen Russian wolf +hounds, the gift, so she told me, of the Grand Duke Nicholas, the former +commander-in-chief of the Russian armies. I have seen many queens, but +I have never seen one who so completely meets the popular conception of +what a queen should look like as Marie of Rumania. Though in the middle +forties, her complexion is so faultless, her physique so superb, her +presence so commanding that, were she utterly unknown, she would still +be a center of attraction in any assemblage. Had she not been born to a +crown she would almost certainly have made a great name for herself, +probably as an actress. She paints exceptionally well and has written +several successful books and stories, thereby following the example of +her famous predecessor on the Rumanian throne, Queen Elizabeth, better +known as Carmen Sylva. She speaks English like an Englishwoman, as well +she may, for she is a granddaughter of Queen Victoria. She is also a +descendant of the Romanoffs, for one of her grandfathers was Alexander +III of Russia. In her manner she is more simple and democratic than many +American women that I know, her poise and simplicity being in striking +contrast to the manners of two of my countrywomen who had spent the +night preceding our arrival at the castle and who were manifestly much +impressed by this contact with the Lord's Anointed. When luncheon was +announced her second daughter, Princess Marie, had not put in an +appearance. But, instead of despatching the major domo to inform her +Royal Highness that the meal was served, the Queen stepped to the foot +of the great staircase and called, "Hurry up, Mignon. You're keeping us +all waiting," whereupon a voice replied from the upper regions, "All +right, mamma. I'll be down in a minute." Not much like the picture of +palace life that the novelists and the motion-picture playwrights give +us, is it? I might add that the Queen commonly refers to the plump young +princess as "Fatty," a nickname which she hardly deserves, however. In +her conversations with me the Queen was at times almost disconcertingly +frank. "Royalty is going out of fashion," she remarked on one occasion, +"but I like my job and I'm going to do everything I can to keep it." To +Mrs. Powell she said, "I have beauty, intelligence and executive +ability. I would be successful in life if I were not a queen." + +Unlike many persons who occupy exalted positions, she has a real sense +of humor. + +"Yesterday," she remarked, "was Nicholas's birthday," referring to her +second son, Prince Nicholas, who, since his elder brother, Prince Carol, +renounced his rights to the throne in order to marry the girl he loved, +has become the heir apparent. "At breakfast his father remarked, 'I'm +sorry, Nicholas, but I haven't any birthday present for you. The shops +in Bucharest were pretty well cleaned out by the Germans, you know, and +I didn't remember your birthday in time to send to Paris for a present.' +'Do you really wish to give Nicholas a present, Nando?' (the diminutive +of Ferdinand) I asked him. 'Of course I do,' the King answered, 'but +what is there to give him?' 'That's the easiest thing in the world,' I +replied. 'There is nothing that would give Nicholas so much pleasure as +an engraving of his dear father--on a thousand-franc note.'" + +Prince Nicholas, the future king of Rumania, who is being educated at +Eton, looks and acts like any normal American "prep" school boy. + +"Do the boys still wear top hats at Eton?" I asked him. + +"Yes, they do," he answered, "but it's a silly custom. And they cost two +guineas apiece. I leave it to you, Major, if two guineas isn't too much +for any hat." + +When I told him that in democratic America certain Fifth Avenue hatters +charge the equivalent of five guineas for a bowler he looked at me in +frank unbelief. "But then," he remarked, "all Americans are rich." + +Shortly before luncheon we were joined by King Ferdinand, a slenderly +built man, somewhat under medium height, with a grizzled beard, a genial +smile and merry, twinkling eyes. He wore the gray-green field uniform +and gold-laced kepi of a Rumanian general, the only thing about his +dress which suggested his exalted rank being the insignia of the Order +of Michael the Brave, which hung from his neck by a gold-and-purple +ribbon. Were you to see him in other clothes and other circumstances you +might well mistake him for an active and successful professional man. +King Ferdinand is the sort of man one enjoys chatting with in front of +an open fire over the cigars, for, in addition to being a shrewd judge +of men and events and having a remarkably exact knowledge of world +affairs, he possesses in an altogether exceptional degree the qualities +of tact, kindliness and humor. + +The King did not hesitate to express his indignation that the re-making +of the map of Europe should have been entrusted to men who possessed so +little first-hand knowledge of the nations whose boundaries they were +re-shaping. + +"A few days before the signing of the Treaty of St. Germain," he told +me, "Lloyd George sent for one of the experts attached to the Peace +Conference. + +"'Where is this Banat that Rumania and Serbia are quarreling over?' he +inquired. + +"'I will show you, sir,' the attaché answered, unrolling a map of +southeastern Europe. For several minutes he explained in detail to the +British Premier the boundaries of the Banat and the conflicting +territorial claims to which its division had given rise. But when he +paused Lloyd George made no response. He was sound asleep! + +"Yet a little group of men," the King continued, "who know no more about +the nations whose destinies they are deciding than Lloyd George knew +about the Banat, have abrogated to themselves the right to cut up and +apportion territories as casually as though they were dividing +apple-tarts." + +[Illustration: KING FERDINAND TELLS MRS. POWELL HIS OPINION OF THE +FASHION IN WHICH THE PEACE CONFERENCE TREATED RUMANIA, WHILE QUEEN MARIE +LISTENS APPROVINGLY] + +The impression prevails in other countries that it is Queen Marie who is +really the head of the Rumanian royal family and that the King is little +more than a figurehead. With this estimate I do not agree. Rumania could +have no better spokesman than Queen Marie, whose talents, beauty, and +exceptional tact peculiarly fit her for the difficult rôle she has been +called upon to play. But the King, though he is by nature quiet and +retiring, is by no means lacking in political sagacity or the courage of +his convictions, being, I am convinced, as important a factor in the +government of his country as the limitations of its constitution permit. +Though none too well liked, I imagine, by the professional politicians, +who in Rumania, as in other countries, resent any attempt at +interference by the sovereign with their plans, the royal couple are +immensely popular with the masses of the people, Ferdinand frequently +being referred to as "the peasants' King." In the darkest days of the +war, when Rumania was overrun by the enemy and it seemed as though +Moldavia and the northern Dobrudja were all that could be saved to the +nation, King Ferdinand and Queen Marie, instead of escaping from their +country or asking the enemy for terms, retreated with the army to Jassy, +on the easternmost limits of the kingdom, where they underwent the +horrors of that terrible winter with their soldiers, the King serving +with the troops in the field and the Queen working in the hospitals as a +Red Cross nurse. Less than three years later, however, on November +twentieth, 1919, there assembled in Bucharest the first parliament of +Greater Rumania, attended by deputies from all those Rumanian +regions--Bessarabia, Transylvania, the Banat, the Bucovina and the +Dobrudja--which had been restored to the Rumanian motherland. At the +head of the chamber, in the great gilt chair of state, sat Ferdinand I, +who, from the fugitive ruler, shivering with his ragged soldiers in the +frozen marshes beside the Pruth, has become the sovereign of a country +having the sixth largest population in Europe and has taken his place in +Rumanian history beside Stephen the Great and Michael the Brave as +Ferdinand the Liberator. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +MAKING A NATION TO ORDER + + +From the young officers who wore on their shoulders the silver greyhound +of the American Courier Service we heard many discouraging tales of the +annoyances and discomforts for which we must be prepared in traveling +through Hungary, the Banat and Jugoslavia. But, to tell the truth, I did +not take these warnings very seriously, for I had observed that a +profoundly pessimistic attitude of mind characterized all of the +Americans or English whose duties had kept them in the Balkans for any +length of time. In Salonika this mental condition was referred to as +"the Balkan tap"--derived, no doubt, from the verb "to knock," as with a +hammer--and it usually implied that those suffering from the ailment had +outstayed their period of usefulness and should be sent home. + +Thrice weekly a train composed of an assortment of ramshackle and +dilapidated coaches, called by courtesy the Orient Express, which +maintained an average speed of fifteen miles an hour, left Bucharest for +Vincovce, a small junction town in the Banat, where it was supposed to +make connections with the south-bound Simplon Express from Paris to +Belgrade and with the north-bound express from Belgrade to Paris. The +Simplon Express likewise ran thrice weekly, so, if the connections were +missed at Vincovce, the passengers were compelled to spend at least two +days in a small Hungarian town which was notorious, even in that region, +for its discomforts and its dirt. All went well with us, however, the +train at one time attaining the dizzy speed of thirty miles an hour, +until, in a particularly desolate portion of the great Hungarian plain, +we came to an abrupt halt. When, after a half hour's wait, I descended +to ascertain the cause of the delay, I found the train crew surrounded +by a group of indignant and protesting passengers. + +"What's the trouble?" I inquired. + +"The engineer claims that he has run out of coal," some one answered. +"But he says that there is a coal depot three or four kilometers ahead +and that, if each first-class passenger will contribute fifty francs, +and each second-class passenger twenty francs, he figures that it will +enable him to buy just enough coal to reach Vincovce. Otherwise, he +says, we will probably miss both connections, which means that we must +stay in Vincovce for forty-eight hours. And if you had ever seen +Vincovce you would understand that such a prospect is anything but +alluring." + +While my fellow-passengers were noisily debating the question I strolled +ahead to take a look at the engine. As I had been led to expect from the +stories I had heard from the courier officers, the tender contained an +ample supply of coal--enough, it seemed to me, to haul the train to +Trieste. + +"This is nothing but a hold-up," I told the assembled passengers. "There +is plenty of coal in the tender. I am as anxious to make the connection +as any of you, but I will settle here and raise bananas, or whatever +they do raise in the Banat, before I will submit to this highwayman's +demands." + +Seeing that his bluff had been called, the engineer, favoring me with a +murderous glance, sullenly climbed into his cab and the train started, +only to stop again, however, a few miles further on, this time, the +engineer explained, because the engine had broken down. There being no +way of disputing this statement, it became a question of pay or +stay--and we stayed. The engineer did not get his tribute and we did not +get our train at Vincovce, where we spent twenty hot, hungry and +extremely disagreeable hours before the arrival of a local train bound +for Semlin, across the Danube from Belgrade. We completed our journey to +the Jugoslav capital in a fourth-class compartment into which were +already squeezed two Serbian soldiers, eight peasants, a crate of live +poultry and a dog, to say nothing of a multitude of small and undesired +occupants whose presence caused considerable annoyance to every one, +including the dog. We were glad when the train arrived at Semlin. + +Late in the summer of 1919, as a result of the reconstruction of the +railway bridges which had been blown up by the Bulgarians early in the +war, through service between Salonika and Belgrade was restored. As the +journey consumed from three to five days, however, the train stopping +for the night at stations where the hotel accommodation was of the most +impossible description, the American and British officials and +relief-workers who were compelled to make the journey (I never heard of +any one making it for pleasure) usually hired a freight car, which they +fitted up with army cots and a small cook-stove, thus traveling in +comparative comfort. + +Curiously enough, the only trains running on anything approaching a +schedule in the Balkans were those loaded with Swiss goods and belonging +to the Swiss Government. In crossing Southern Hungary we passed at least +half-a-dozen of them, they being readily distinguished by a Swiss flag +painted on each car. Each train, consisting of forty cars, was +accompanied by a Swiss officer and twenty infantrymen--finely set-up +fellows in _feldgrau_ with steel helmets modeled after the German +pattern. Had the trains not been thus guarded, I was told, the goods +would never have reached their destination and the cars, which are the +property of the Swiss State Railways, would never have been returned. It +is by such drastic methods as this that Switzerland, though hard hit by +the war, has kept the wheels of her industries turning and her currency +from serious depreciation. I have rarely seen more hopeless-looking +people than those congregated on the platforms of the little stations at +which we stopped in Hungary. The Rumanian armies had swept the country +clean of livestock and agricultural machinery, throwing thousands of +peasants out of work, and, owing to the appalling depreciation of the +kroner, which was worth less than a twentieth of its normal value, great +numbers of people who, under ordinary conditions, would have been +described as comfortably well off, found themselves with barely +sufficient resources to keep themselves from want. To add to their +discouragement, the greatest uncertainty prevailed as to Hungary's +future. In order to obtain an idea of just how familiar the inhabitants +of the rural districts were with political conditions, I asked four +intelligent-looking men in succession who was the ruler of Hungary and +what was its present form of government. The first opined that the +Archduke Joseph had been chosen king; another ventured the belief that +the country was a republic with Bela Kun as president; the third +asserted that Hungary had been annexed to Rumania; while the last man I +questioned said quite frankly that he didn't know who was running the +country, or what its form of government was, and that he didn't much +care. As a result of the decision of the Peace Conference which awarded +Transylvania to Rumania and divided the Banat between Rumania and +Jugoslavia, Hungary finds herself stripped of virtually all her forests, +all her mines, all her oil wells, and all of her manufactories save +those in Budapest, thus stripping the bankrupt and demoralized nation of +practically all of her resources save her wheat-fields. I talked with a +number of Americans and English who were conversant with Hungary's +internal condition and they agreed that it was doubtful if the country, +stripped of its richest territories, deprived of most of its resources, +and hemmed in by hostile and jealous peoples, could long exist as an +independent state. On several occasions I heard the opinion expressed +that sooner or later the Hungarians, in order to save themselves from +complete ruin, would ask to be admitted to the Jugoslav Confederation, +thereby obtaining for their products an outlet to the sea. In any +event, the Hungarians appear to have a more friendly feeling for their +Jugoslav neighbors than for the Rumanians, whom they charge with a +deliberate attempt to bring about their economic ruin. + +In spite of the prohibitive cost of labor and materials, we found that +the traces of the Austrian bombardment of Belgrade in 1914, which did +enormous damage to the Serbian capital, were rapidly being effaced and +that the city was fast resuming its pre-war appearance. The place was as +busy as a boom town in the oil country. The Grand Hotel, where the food +was the best and cheapest we found in the Balkans, was filled to the +doors with officers, politicians, members of parliament--for the +Skupshtina was in session--relief workers, commercial travelers and +concession seekers, and the huge Hotel Moskowa, built, I believe, with +Russian capital, was about to reopen. Architecturally, Belgrade shows +many traces of Muscovite influence, many of the more important buildings +having the ornate façades of pink, green and purple tiles, the colored +glass windows, and the gilded domes which are so characteristically +Russian. Though the main thoroughfare of the city, formerly called the +Terásia but now known as Milan Street, is admirably paved with wooden +blocks, the cobble pavements of the other streets have remained +unchanged since the days of Turkish rule, being so rough that it is +almost impossible to drive a motor car over them without imminent danger +of breaking the springs. Five minutes' walk from the center of the city, +on a promontory commanding a superb view of the Danube and its junction +with the Save, is a really charming park known as the Slopes of +Dreaming, where, on fine evenings, almost the entire population of the +capital appears to be promenading, the rather drab appearance of an +urban crowd being brightened by the gaily embroidered costumes of the +peasants and the silver-trimmed uniforms of the Serbian officers. + +The palace known as the Old Konak, where King Alexander and Queen Draga +were assassinated under peculiarly revolting circumstances on the night +of June 11, 1905, and from an upper window of which their mutilated +bodies were thrown into the garden, has been torn down, presumably +because of its unpleasant associations for the present dynasty, but +only a stone's throw away from the tragic spot is being erected a large +and ornate palace of gray stone, ornamented with numerous carvings, as a +residence for Prince-Regent Alexander, who, when I was there, was +occupying a modest one-story building on the opposite side of the +street. By far the most interesting building in Belgrade, however, is a +low, tile-roofed, white-walled wine-shop at the corner of Knes +Mihajelowa Uliza and Kolartsch Uliza, which is pointed out to visitors +as "the Cradle of the War," for in the low-ceilinged room on the second +floor is said to have been hatched the plot which resulted in the +assassination of the Austrian archducal couple at Serajevo in the spring +of 1914 and thereby precipitated Armageddon. + +[Illustration: THE WINE-SHOP WHICH IS POINTED OUT TO VISITORS AS "THE +CRADLE OF THE WAR"] + +In this connection, here is a story, told me by a Czechoslovak who had +served as an officer in the Serbian army during the war, which throws an +interesting sidelight on the tragedy of Serajevo. This officer's uncle, +a colonel in the Austrian army, had been, it seemed, equerry to the +Archduke Ferdinand, being in attendance on the Archduke at the Imperial +shooting-lodge in Bohemia when, early in the spring of 1914, the +German Emperor, accompanied by Admiral von Tirpitz, went there, +ostensibly for the shooting. The day after their arrival, according to +my informant's story, the Emperor and the Archduke went out with the +guns, leaving Admiral von Tirpitz at the lodge with the Archduchess. The +equerry, who was on duty in an anteroom, through a partly opened door +overheard the Admiral urging the Archduchess to obtain the consent of +her husband--with whom she was known to exert extraordinary +influence--to a union of Austria-Hungary with Germany upon the death of +Francis Joseph, who was then believed to be dying--a scheme which had +long been cherished by the Kaiser and the Pan-Germans. + +"Never will I lend my influence to such a plan!" the equerry heard the +Archduchess violently exclaim. "Never! Never! Never!" + +At the moment the Emperor and the Archduke, having returned from their +battue, entered the room, whereupon the Archduchess, her voice shrill +with indignation, poured out to her husband the story of von Tirpitz's +proposal. The Archduke, always noted for the violence of his temper, +promptly sided with his wife, angrily accusing the Kaiser of intriguing +behind his back against the independence of Austria. Ensued a violent +altercation between the ruler of Germany and the Austrian heir-apparent, +which ended in the Kaiser and his adviser abruptly terminating their +visit and departing the same evening for Berlin. + +For the truth of this story I do not vouch; I merely repeat it in the +words in which it was told to me by an officer whose veracity I have no +reason to question. There are many things which point to its +probability. Certain it is that the Archduke, who was a man of strong +character and passionately devoted to the best interests of the Dual +Monarchy, was the greatest obstacle to the Kaiser's scheme for the union +of the two empires under his rule, a scheme which, could it have been +realized, would have given Germany that highroad to the East and that +outlet to the Warm Water of which the Pan-Germans had long dreamed. The +assassination of the Archduke a few weeks later not only removed the +greatest stumbling-block to these schemes of Teutonic expansion, but it +further served the Kaiser's purpose by forcing Austria into war with +Serbia, thereby making Austria responsible, in the eyes of the world, +for launching the conflict which the Kaiser had planned. + +There has never been any conclusive proof, remember, that the Serbs were +responsible for Ferdinand's assasination. Not that there is anything in +their history which would lead one to believe that they would balk at +that method of removing an enemy, but, regarded from a political +standpoint, it would have been the most unintelligent and short-sighted +thing they could possibly have done. Nor are the Serbs and the +Pan-Germans the only ones to whom the crime might logically be traced. +Ferdinand, remember, had many enemies within the borders of his own +country. The Austrian anti-clericals hated and distrusted him because he +surrounded himself by Jesuit advisers and because he was believed to be +unduly under the influence of the Church of Rome. He was equally +unpopular with a large and powerful element of the Hungarians, who +foresaw a serious diminution of their influence in the affairs of the +monarchy should the Archduke succeed in realizing his dream of a Triple +Kingdom composed of Austria, Hungary and the Southern Slavs. + +Strange indeed are the changes which have been brought about by the +greatest conflict. Ferdinand, descendant of a long line of princes, +kings and emperors, has passed round that dark corner whence no man +returns, but his ambitious dreams of a triple kingdom which would +include the Southern Slavs have survived him, though in a somewhat +modified form. But he who sits on the throne of the new kingdom, and who +rules to-day over a great portion of the former dominions of the +Hapsburgs, instead of being a scion of the Imperial House of Austria, is +the great-grandson of a Serbian blacksmith. + +Owing to the ill-health and advanced age of King Peter of Serbia, his +second son, Alexander, is Prince-Regent of the Kingdom of the Serbs, +Croats and Slovenes. Prince Alexander, a slender, dark-complexioned man +with characteristically Slav features, was educated in Vienna and is +said to be an excellent soldier. He is extremely democratic, simple in +manner, a student, a hard worker, and devoted to the best interests of +his people. Though he is an accomplished horseman, a daring, even +reckless motorist, and an excellent shot, he is probably the loneliest +man in his kingdom, for he has no close associates of his own age, being +surrounded by elderly and serious-minded advisers; his aged father is in +a sanitarium, his scapegrace elder brother lives in Paris, and his +sister, a Russian grand duchess, makes her home on the Riviera. Though +old beyond his years and visibly burdened by the responsibilities of his +difficult position, he possesses a peculiarly winning manner and is +immensely popular with his soldiers, whose hardships he shared +throughout the war. Though he enjoys no great measure of popularity +among his new Croat and Slovene subjects, who might be expected to +regard any Serb ruler with a certain degree of jealousy and suspicion, +he has unquestionably won their profound respect. It is a difficult and +trying position which this young man occupies, and it is not made any +easier for him, I imagine, by the knowledge that, should he make a false +step, should he arouse the enmity of certain of the powerful factions +which surround him, the fate of his predecessor and namesake, King +Alexander, might quite conceivably befall him. + +I have been asked if, in my opinion, the peoples composing the new state +of Jugoslavia will stick together. If there could be effected a +confederation, modeled on that of Switzerland or the United States, in +which the component states would have equal representation, with the +executive power vested in a Federal Council, as in Switzerland, then I +believe that Jugoslavia would develop into a stable and prosperous +nation. But I very much doubt if the Croats, the Slovenes, the Bosnians +and the Montenegrins will willingly consent to a permanent arrangement +whereby the new nation is placed under a Serbian dynasty, no matter how +complete are the safeguards afforded by the constitution or how +conscientious and fair-minded the sovereign himself may be. No one +questions the ability or the honesty of purpose of Prince Alexander, but +the non-Serb elements feel, and not wholly without justification, that a +Serbian prince on the throne means Serbian politicians in places of +authority, thereby giving Serbia a disproportionate share of authority +in the government of Jugoslavia, as Prussia had in the government of the +German Empire. + +Already there have been manifestations of friction between the Serbs and +the Croats and between the Serbs and the Slovenes, to say nothing of the +open hostility which exists between the Serbs and certain Montenegrin +factions, to which I have alluded in a preceding chapter. It should be +remembered that the Croats and Slovenes, though members of the great +family of Southern Slavs, have by no means as much in common with their +Serb kinsmen as is generally believed. Croatia and Slovenia have both +educated and wealthy classes. Serbia, on the contrary, has a very small +educated class and practically no wealthy class, it being said that +there is not a millionaire in the country. Slovenia and Croatia each +have their aristocracies, with titles and estates and traditions; +Serbia's population is wholly composed of peasants, or of business and +professional men who come from peasant stock. As a result of the large +sums which were spent on public instruction in Croatia and Slovenia +under Austrian rule, only a comparatively small proportion of the +population is illiterate. But in Serbia public education is still in a +regrettably backward state, the latest figures available showing that +less than seventeen per cent. of the population can read and write, a +condition which, I doubt not, will rapidly improve with the +reestablishment of peace. Laibach (now known as Lubiana), the chief city +of Croatia, Agram, in Slovenia, and Serajevo, the capital of Bosnia, +have long been known as education centers, possessing a culture and +educational facilities of which far larger cities would have reason to +be proud. But Belgrade, having been, as it were, on the frontier of +European civilization, has been compelled to concentrate its energies +and its resources on commerce and the national defense. The attitude of +the people of Agram toward the less sophisticated and cultured Serbs +might be compared to that of an educated Bostonian toward an Arizona +ranchman--a worthy, industrious fellow, no doubt, but rather lacking in +culture and refinement. The truth of the matter is that the Croats and +the Slovenes, though only too glad to escape the Allies' wrath by +claiming kinship with the Serbs and taking refuge under the banner of +Jugoslavia, at heart consider themselves immeasurably superior to their +southern kinsmen, whose political dictation, now that the storm has +passed, they are beginning to resent. + +The first impression which the Serb makes upon a stranger is rarely a +favorable one. As an American diplomat, who is a sincere friend of +Serbia, remarked to me, "The Serb has neither manner nor manners. The +visitor always sees his worst side while his best side remains hidden. +He never puts his best foot forward." + +A certain sullen defiance of public opinion is, it has sometimes seemed +to me, a characteristic of the Serb. He gives one the impression of +constantly carrying a chip on his shoulder and daring any one to knock +it off. He is always eager for an argument, but, like so many +argumentative persons, it is almost impossible to convince him that he +is in the wrong. The slightest opposition often drives him into an +almost childlike rage and if things go against him he is apt to charge +his opponent with insincerity or prejudice. He can see things only one +way, _his_ way and he resents criticism so violently that it is seldom +wise to argue with him. + +Though the Serb, when afforded opportunities for education, usually +shows great brilliancy as a student and often climbs high in his chosen +profession, he all too frequently lacks the mental poise and the power +of restraining his passions which are the heritage of those peoples who +have been educated for generations. + +In Serbia, as in the other Balkan states, it is the peasants who form +the most substantial and likeable element of the population. The Serbian +peasant is simple, kindly, honest, and hospitable, and, though he could +not be described with strict truthfulness as a hard worker, his wife +invariably is. Although, like most primitive peoples, he is suspicious +of strangers, once he is assured that they are friends there is no +sacrifice that he will not make for their comfort, going cold and +hungry, if necessary, in order that they may have his blanket and his +food. He is one of the very best soldiers in Europe, somewhat careless +in dress, drill and discipline, perhaps, but a good shot, a tireless +marcher, inured to every form of hardship, and invariably cheerful and +uncomplaining. Perhaps it is his instinctive love of soldiering which +makes him so reluctant to lay down the rifle and take up the hoe. He +has fought three victorious wars in rapid succession and he has come to +believe that his metier is fighting. In this he is tacitly encouraged by +France, who sees in an armed and ready-to-fight-at-the-drop-of-the-hat +Jugoslavia a counterbalance to Italian ambitions in the Balkans. + +Though there are irresponsible elements in both Jugoslavia and Italy who +talk lightly of war, I am convinced that the great bulk of the +population in both countries realize that such a war would be the height +of shortsightedness and folly. Throughout the Fiume and Dalmatian crises +precipitated by d'Annunzio, Jugoslavia behaved with exemplary patience, +dignity and discretion. Let her future foreign relations continue to be +characterized by such self-control; let her turn her energies to +developing the vast territories to which she has so unexpectedly fallen +heir; let her take immediate steps toward inaugurating systems of +transportation, public instruction and sanitation; let her waste no time +in ridding herself of her jingo politicians and officers--let Jugoslavia +do these things and her future will take care of itself. She is a young +country, remember. Let us be charitable in judging her. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The New Frontiers of Freedom from the +Alps to the Ægean, by Edward Alexander Powell + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM *** + +***** This file should be named 17292-8.txt or 17292-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/7/2/9/17292/ + +Produced by Marilynda Fraser-Cunliffe, Taavi Kalju and the +Online Distributed Proofreaders Europe at +http://dp.rastko.net. 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Alexander Powell. + </title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + p { margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; + } + hr { width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; + } + + table {margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;} + + body{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + + .linenum {position: absolute; top: auto; left: 4%;} /* poetry number */ + .blockquot{margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 10%;} + .pagenum {position: absolute; left: 1%; font-size: smaller; text-align: left; color: gray;} + .sidenote {width: 20%; padding-bottom: .5em; padding-top: .5em; + padding-left: .5em; padding-right: .5em; margin-left: 1em; + float: right; clear: right; margin-top: 1em; + font-size: smaller; background: #eeeeee; border: dashed 1px;} + + .bb {border-bottom: solid 2px;} + .bl {border-left: solid 2px;} + .bt {border-top: solid 2px;} + .br {border-right: solid 2px;} + .bbox {border: solid 2px;} + + .center {text-align: center;} + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + .u {text-decoration: underline;} + + .caption {font-weight: bold;} + + .figcenter {margin: auto; text-align: center;} + + .figleft {float: left; clear: left; margin-left: 0; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: + 1em; margin-right: 1em; padding: 0; text-align: center;} + + .figright {float: right; clear: right; margin-left: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; + margin-top: 1em; margin-right: 0; padding: 0; text-align: center;} + + .footnotes {border: dashed 1px;} + .footnote {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em;} + .footnote .label {position: absolute; right: 84%; text-align: right;} + .fnanchor {vertical-align: super; font-size: .8em; text-decoration: none;} + + .poem {margin-left:10%; margin-right:10%; text-align: left;} + .poem br {display: none;} + .poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;} + .poem span.i0 {display: block; margin-left: 0em;} + .poem span.i2 {display: block; margin-left: 2em;} + .poem span.i4 {display: block; margin-left: 4em;} + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The New Frontiers of Freedom from the Alps +to the Ægean, by Edward Alexander Powell + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The New Frontiers of Freedom from the Alps to the Ægean + +Author: Edward Alexander Powell + +Release Date: December 12, 2005 [EBook #17292] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM *** + + + + +Produced by Marilynda Fraser-Cunliffe, Taavi Kalju and the +Online Distributed Proofreaders Europe at +http://dp.rastko.net. (This file was made using scans of +public domain works from the University of Michigan Digital +Libraries.) + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<h5><i>BY E. ALEXANDER POWELL</i></h5> + +<p class="center"> +THE NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM<br /> +THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY<br /> +THE LAST FRONTIER<br /> +GENTLEMEN ROVERS<br /> +THE END OF THE TRAIL<br /> +FIGHTING IN FLANDERS<br /> +THE ROAD TO GLORY<br /> +VIVE LA FRANCE!<br /> +ITALY AT WAR<br /> +</p> + +<h5><i>CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS</i></h5> + + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 353px;"> +<a id="image01" name="image01"> +<img src="images/01.jpg" width="353" height="474" alt="THE QUEEN OF RUMANIA TELLS MAJOR POWELL THAT SHE ENJOYS BEING A QUEEN" title="THE QUEEN OF RUMANIA TELLS MAJOR POWELL THAT SHE ENJOYS BEING A QUEEN" /></a> +<span class="caption">THE QUEEN OF RUMANIA TELLS MAJOR POWELL THAT SHE ENJOYS BEING A QUEEN</span> +</div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h1>THE NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM</h1> + +<h2><i>FROM THE ALPS TO THE ÆGEAN</i></h2> + +<h3>BY</h3> + +<h2>E. ALEXANDER POWELL</h2> + + +<h5> +NEW YORK<br /> +CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS<br /> +1920<br /> +</h5> + +<h5> +COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY<br /> +CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS<br /> +</h5> + +<h5><i>Published April, 1920</i></h5> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h3> +<span class="smcap">to a real and lifelong friend</span><br /> +MAJOR J. STANLEY MOORE<br /> +<span class="smcap">of the department of state</span><br /> +</h3> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="pagevii" name="pagevii"></a>Pg vii</span></p> +<h2>AN ACKNOWLEDGMENT</h2> + + +<p>Owing to the disturbed conditions which prevailed throughout most of +southeastern Europe during the summer and autumn of 1919, the journey +recorded in the following pages could not have been taken had it not +been for the active cooperation of the Governments through whose +territories we traveled and the assistance afforded by their officials +and by the officers of their armies and navies, to say nothing of the +hospitality shown us by American diplomatic and consular +representatives, relief-workers and others. From the Alps to the Ægean, +in Italy, Dalmatia, Montenegro, Albania, Macedonia, Turkey, Rumania, +Hungary and Serbia we met with universal courtesy and kindness.</p> + +<p>For the innumerable courtesies which we were shown in Italy and the +regions under Italian occupation I am indebted to His Excellency +Francisco Nitti, Prime Minister of Italy, and<span class="pagenum"><a id="pageviii" name="pageviii"></a>Pg viii</span> to former Premier +Orlando, to General Armando Diaz, Commander-in-Chief of the Italian +Armies; to Lieutenant-General Albricci, Minister of War; to Admiral +Thaon di Revel, Minister of Marine; to Vice-Admiral Count Enrice Mulo, +Governor-General of Dalmatia; to Lieutenant-General Piacentini, +Governor-General of Albania, to Lieutenant-General Montanari, commanding +the Italian troops in Dalmatia; to Rear-Admiral Wenceslao Piazza, +commanding the Italian forces in the Curzolane Islands; to +Lieutenant-Colonel Antonio Chiesa, commanding the Italian troops in +Montenegro; to Colonel Aldo Aymonino, Captain Marchese Piero Ricci and +Captain Ernesto Tron of the <i>Comando Supremo</i>, the last-named being our +companion and cicerone on a motor-journey of nearly three thousand +miles; to Captain Roggieri of the Royal Italian Navy, Chief of Staff to +the Governor-General of Dalmatia; to Captain Amedeo Acton, commanding +the "<i>Filiberto</i>"; to Captain Fausto M. Leva, commanding the +"<i>Dandolo</i>"; to Captain Giulio Menin, commanding the "<i>Puglia</i>," and to +Captain Filipopo, commanding the "<i>Ardente</i>," all of whom entertained us +with the hospitality so<span class="pagenum"><a id="pageix" name="pageix"></a>Pg ix</span> characteristic of the Italian Navy; to +Lieutenant Giuseppe Castruccio, our cicerone in Rome and my companion on +dirigible and airplane flights; to Lieutenant Bartolomeo Poggi and +Engineer-Captain Alexander Ceccarelli, respectively commander and chief +engineer of the destroyer "<i>Sirio</i>," both of whom, by their unfailing +thoughtfulness and courtesy added immeasurably to the interest and +enjoyment of our voyage down the Adriatic from Fiume to Valona; to +Lieutenant Pellegrini di Tondo, our companion on the long journey by +motor across Albania and Macedonia; to Lieutenant Morpurgo, who showed +us many kindnesses during our stay in Salonika; to Baron San Martino of +the Italian Peace Delegation; to Lieutenant Stroppa-Quaglia, attaché of +the Italian Peace Delegation, and, above all else, to those valued +friends, Cavaliere Giuseppe Brambilla, Counselor of the Italian Embassy +in Washington; Major-General Gugliemotti, Military Attaché, and +Professor Vittorio Falorsi, formerly Secretary of the Embassy at +Washington, to each of whom I am indebted for countless kindnesses. No +list of those to whom I am indebted would be complete, however, unless +it<span class="pagenum"><a id="pagex" name="pagex"></a>Pg x</span> included the name of my valued and lamented friend, the late Count +V. Macchi di Cellere, Italian Ambassador to the United States, whose +memory I shall never forget.</p> + +<p>I welcome this opportunity of expressing our appreciation of the +hospitality shown us by their Majesties King Ferdinand and Queen Marie +of Rumania, who entertained us at their Castle of Pelesch, and of +acknowledging my indebtedness to His Excellency M. Bratianu, Prime +Minister of Rumania, and to M. Constantinescu, Rumanian Minister of +Commerce.</p> + +<p>I am profoundly appreciative of the honor shown me by His Majesty King +Nicholas of Montenegro, and my grateful thanks are also due to His +Excellency General A. Gvosdenovitch, Aide-de-Camp to the King and former +Minister of Montenegro to the United States.</p> + +<p>For the trouble to which they put themselves in facilitating my visit to +Jugoslavia I am deeply grateful to His Excellency M. Grouitch, Minister +from the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes to the United States, +and to His Excellency M. Vesnitch, the Jugoslav Minister to France.</p> + +<p>From the long list of our own country-people<span class="pagenum"><a id="pagexi" name="pagexi"></a>Pg xi</span> abroad to whom we are +indebted for hospitality and kindness, I wish particularly to thank the +Honorable Thomas Nelson Page, formerly American Ambassador to Italy; the +Honorable Percival Dodge, American Minister to the Kingdom of the Serbs, +Croats and Slovenes; the Honorable Gabriel Bie Ravndal, American +Commissioner and Consul-General in Constantinople; the Honorable Francis +B. Keene, American Consul-General in Rome; Colonel Halsey Yates, U.S.A., +American Military Attaché at Bucharest; Lieutenant-Colonel L.G. Ament, +U.S.A., Director of the American Relief Administration in Rumania, who +was our host during our stay in Bucharest, as was Major Carey of the +American Red Cross during our visit in Salonika; Dr. Frances Flood, +Director of the American Red Cross Hospital in Monastir, and Mrs. Mary +Halsey Moran, in charge of American relief work in Constantza, in whose +hospitable homes we found a warm welcome during our stays in those +cities; Reverend and Mrs. Phineas Kennedy of Koritza, Albania; Dr. Henry +King, President of Oberlin College, and Charles R. Crane, Esquire, of +the Commission on Mandates in the<span class="pagenum"><a id="pagexii" name="pagexii"></a>Pg xii</span> Near East; Dr. Fisher, Professor of +Modern History at Robert College, Constantinople; and finally of three +friends in Rome, Mr. Cortese, representative in Italy of the Associated +Press; Dr. Webb, founder and director of the hospital for facial wounds +at Udine; and Nelson Gay, Esquire, the celebrated historian, all three +of whom shamefully neglected their personal affairs in order to give me +suggestions and assistance.</p> + +<p>To all of those named above, and to many others who are not named, I am +deeply grateful.</p> + +<p>E. Alexander Powell.</p> + +<p> +Yokohama, Japan,<br /> +February, 1920.<br /> +</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="pagexiii" name="pagexiii"></a>Pg xii</span></p> +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> + +<table summary="Contents"> + <tr> + <td align="center">CHAPTER</td><td> </td><td></td><td align="center">PAGE</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td></td><td></td><td><span class="smcap">An Acknowledgment</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#pagevii">vii</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td></td><td></td><td><span class="smcap">Contents</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#pagexiii">xiii</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td></td><td></td><td><span class="smcap">Illustrations</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#pagexv">xv</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td align="right">I</td><td></td><td><span class="smcap">Across the Redeemed Lands</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#page1">1</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td align="right">II</td><td></td><td><span class="smcap">The Borderland of Slav and Latin</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#page56">56</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td align="right">III</td><td></td><td><span class="smcap">The Cemetery of Four Empires</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#page110">110</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td align="right">IV</td><td></td><td><span class="smcap">Under the Cross and the Crescent</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#page155">155</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td align="right">V</td><td></td><td><span class="smcap">Will the Sick Man of Europe Recover?</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#page176">176</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td align="right">VI</td><td></td><td><span class="smcap">What the Peace-Makers Have Done on the Danube</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#page206">206</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td align="right">VII</td><td></td><td><span class="smcap">Making a Nation to Order</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#page243">243</a></td> + </tr> +</table> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="pagexv" name="pagexv"></a>Pg xv</span></p> +<h2>ILLUSTRATIONS</h2> + +<table summary="Illustrations"> + <tr> + <td><a href="#image01"><b>The Queen of Rumania tells Major Powell that she enjoys being a Queen</b></a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td><a href="#image02"><b>His first sight of the Terra Irridenta</b></a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td><a href="#image03"><b>The end of the day</b></a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td><a href="#image04"><b>A little mother of the Tyrol</b></a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td><a href="#image05"><b>Italy's new frontier</b></a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td><a href="#image06"><b>This is not Venice, as you might suppose, but Trieste</b></a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td><a href="#image07"><b>At the gates of Fiume</b></a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td><a href="#image08"><b>The inhabitants of Fiume cheering d'Annunzio and his raiders</b></a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td><a href="#image09"><b>His Majesty Nicholas I, King of Montenegro</b></a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td><a href="#image10"><b>Two conspirators of Antivari</b></a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td><a href="#image11"><b>The head men of Ljaskoviki, Albania, waiting to bid Major and Mrs. Powell farewell</b></a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td><a href="#image12"><b>The ancient walls of Salonika</b></a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td><a href="#image13"><b>Yildiz Kiosk, the favorite palace of Abdul-Hamid and his successors on the throne of Osman</b></a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td><a href="#image14"><b>The Red Badge of Mercy in the Balkans</b></a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td><a href="#image15"><b>The gypsy who demanded five lei for the privilege of taking her picture</b></a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td><a href="#image16"><b>A peasant of Old Serbia</b></a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td><a href="#image17"><b>King Ferdinand tells Mrs. Powell his opinion of the fashion in which the Peace Conference treated Rumania</b></a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td><a href="#image18"><b>The wine-shop which is pointed out to visitors as "the Cradle of the War"</b></a></td> + </tr> +</table> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page1" name="page1"></a>Pg 1</span></p> +<h2>THE NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM</h2> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CHAPTER I</h2> + +<h3>ACROSS THE REDEEMED LANDS</h3> + + +<p>It is unwise, generally speaking, to write about countries and peoples +when they are in a state of political flux, for what is true at the +moment of writing may be misleading the next. But the conditions which +prevailed in the lands beyond the Adriatic during the year succeeding +the signing of the Armistice were so extraordinary, so picturesque, so +wholly without parallel in European history, that they form a sort of +epilogue, as it were, to the story of the great conflict. To have +witnessed the dismemberment of an empire which was hoary with antiquity +when the Republic in which we live was yet unborn; to have seen +insignificant states expand almost overnight into powerful nations; to +have seen and talked with peoples who did not know from day to day the +form of government under which they were living, or the name of their +ruler, or the color of their<span class="pagenum"><a id="page2" name="page2"></a>Pg 2</span> flag; to have seen millions of human +beings transferred from sovereignty to sovereignty like cattle which +have been sold—these are sights the like of which will probably not be +seen again in our times or in those of our children, and, because they +serve to illustrate a chapter of History which is of immense importance, +I have tried to sketch them, in brief, sharp outline, in this book.</p> + +<p>Because I was curious to see for myself how the countrymen of Andreas +Hofer in South Tyrol would accept their enforced Italianization; whether +the Italians of Fiume would obey the dictum of President Wilson that +their city must be Slav; how the Turks of Smyrna and the Bulgarians of +Thrace would welcome Hellenic rule; whether the Croats and Slovenes and +Bosnians and Montenegrins were content to remain pasted in the Jugoslav +stamp-album; and because I wished to travel through these disputed +regions while the conditions and problems thus created were still new, +we set out, my wife and I, at about the time the Peace Conference was +drawing to a close, on a journey, made largely by motor-car and +destroyer, which took us from the Adige to the Vardar and from the<span class="pagenum"><a id="page3" name="page3"></a>Pg 3</span> +Vardar to the Pruth, along more than five thousand miles of those new +national boundaries—drawn in Paris by a lawyer, a doctor and a college +professor—which have been termed, with undue optimism perhaps, the +frontiers of freedom.</p> + +<p>Some of the things which I shall say in these pages will probably give +offense to those governments which showed us many courtesies. Those who +are privileged to speak for governments are fond of asserting that +<i>their</i> governments have nothing to conceal and that they welcome honest +criticism, but long experience has taught me that when they are told +unpalatable truths governments are usually as sensitive and resentful as +friends. Now it has always seemed to me that a writer owes his first +allegiance to his readers. To misinform them by writing only half-truths +for the sake of retaining the good-will of those written about is as +unethical, to my way of thinking, as it is for a newspaper to suppress +facts which the public is entitled to know in order not to offend its +advertisers. Were I to show my appreciation of the many kindnesses which +we received from governments, sovereigns and officials by re<span class="pagenum"><a id="page4" name="page4"></a>Pg 4</span>fraining +from unfavorable comment on their actions and their policies, this book +would possess about as much intrinsic value as those sumptuous volumes +which are written to the order of certain Latin-American republics, in +which the authors studiously avoid touching on such embarrassing +subjects as revolutions, assassinations, earthquakes, finances, or +fevers for fear of scaring away foreign investors or depreciating the +government securities.</p> + +<p>It is entirely possible that in forming some of my conclusions I was +unconsciously biased by the hospitality and kindness we were shown, for +it is human nature to have a more friendly feeling for the man who +invites you to dinner or sends you a card to his club than for the man +who ignores your existence; it is probable that I not infrequently +placed the wrong interpretation on what I saw and heard, especially in +the Balkans; and, in those cases where I have rashly ventured to indulge +in prophecy, it is more than likely that future events will show that as +a prophet I am not an unqualified success. In spite of these +shortcomings, however, I would like my readers to believe that I have +made a conscientious effort to place be<span class="pagenum"><a id="page5" name="page5"></a>Pg 5</span>fore them, in the following +pages, a plain and unprejudiced account of how the essays in map-making +of the lawyer, the doctor and the college professor in Paris have +affected the peoples, problems and politics of that vast region which +stretches from the Alps to the Ægean.</p> + +<p>The Queen of the Adriatic never looked more radiantly beautiful than on +the July morning when, from the landing-stage in front of the Danieli, +we boarded the <i>vapore</i> which, after an hour's steaming up the teeming +Guidecca and across the outlying lagoons, set us down at the road-head, +on the mainland, where young Captain Tron, of the Comando Supremo, was +awaiting us with a big gray staff-car. Captain Tron, who had been born +on the Riviera and spoke English like an Oxonian, had been aide-de-camp +to the Prince of Wales during that young gentleman's prolonged stay on +the Italian front. He was selected by the Italian High Command to +accompany us, I imagine, because of his ability to give intelligent +answers to every conceivable sort of question, his tact, and his +unfailing discretion. His chief weakness was his proclivity for +road-burning, in which he was enthusiastically abetted by our Sicilian +chauffeur,<span class="pagenum"><a id="page6" name="page6"></a>Pg 6</span> who, before attaining to the dignity of driving a staff-car, +had spent an apprenticeship of two years in piloting ammunition-laden +<i>camions</i> over the narrow and perilous roads which led to the positions +held by the Alpini amid the higher peaks, during which he learned to +save his tires and his brake-linings by taking on two wheels instead of +four the hairpin mountain turns. Now I am perfectly willing to travel as +fast as any one, if necessity demands it, but to tear through a region +as beautiful as Venetia at sixty miles an hour, with the incomparable +landscape whirling past in a confused blur, like a motion-picture film +which is being run too fast because the operator is in a hurry to get +home, seems to me as unintelligent as it is unnecessary. Like all +Italian drivers, moreover, our chauffeur insisted on keeping his cut-out +wide open, thereby producing a racket like a machine-gun, which, though +it gave warning of our approach when we were still a mile away, made any +attempt at conversation, save by shouting, out of the question.</p> + +<p>Because I wished to follow Italy's new frontiers from their very +beginning, at that point where the boundaries of Italy, Austria and<span class="pagenum"><a id="page7" name="page7"></a>Pg 7</span> +Switzerland meet near the Stelvio Pass, our course from Venice lay +northwestward, across the dusty plains of Venetia, shimmering in the +summer heat, the low, pleasant-looking villas of white or pink or +sometimes pale blue stucco, set far back in blazing gardens, peering +coyly out at us from between the ranks of stately cypresses which lined +the highway, like daintily-gowned girls seeking an excuse for a +flirtation. Dotting the Venetian plain are many quaint and charming +towns of whose existence the tourist, traveling by train, never dreams, +their massive walls, sometimes defended by moats and draw-bridges, +bearing mute witness to this region's stormy and romantic past. Towering +above the red-tiled roofs of each of these Venetian plain-towns is its +slender campanile, and, as each campanile is of distinctive design, it +serves as a landmark by which the town can be identified from afar. +Through the narrow, cobble-paved streets of Vicenza we swept, between +rows of shops opening into cool, dim, vaulted porticoes, where the +townspeople can lounge and stroll and gossip without exposing themselves +to rain or sun; through Rovereto, noted for its silk-culture and for its +old, old houses,<span class="pagenum"><a id="page8" name="page8"></a>Pg 8</span> superb examples of the domestic architecture of the +Middle Ages, with faded frescoes on their quaint façades; and so up the +rather monotonous and uninteresting valley of the Adige until, just as +the sun was sinking behind the Adamello, whose snowy flanks were bathed +in the rosy <i>Alpenglow</i>, we came roaring into Trent, the capital and +center of the Trentino, which, together with Trieste and its adjacent +territory, composed the regions commonly referred to by Italians before +the war as <i>Italia Irredenta</i>—Unredeemed Italy.</p> + +<p>Rooms had been reserved for us at the Hotel Trento, a famous tourist +hostelry in pre-war days, which had been used as headquarters by the +field-marshal commanding the Austrian forces in the Trentino, signs of +its military occupation being visible in the scratched wood-work and +ruined upholstery. The spurs of the Austrian staff officers on duty in +Trent, as Major Rupert Hughes once remarked of the American staff +officers on duty in Washington, must have been dripping with furniture +polish.</p> + +<p>Trent—or Trento, as its new owners call it—is a place of some 30,000 +inhabitants, built on both banks of the Adige, in the center of<span class="pagenum"><a id="page9" name="page9"></a>Pg 9</span> a great +bowl-shaped valley which is completely hemmed in by towering mountain +walls. In the church of Santa Maria Maggiore the celebrated Council of +Trent sat in the middle of the sixteenth century for nearly a decade. On +the eastern side of the town rises the imposing Castello del Buon +Consiglio, once the residence of the Prince-Bishops but now a barracks +for Italian soldiery.</p> + +<p>No one who knows Trent can question the justice of Italy's claims to the +city and to the rich valleys surrounding it, for the history, the +traditions, the language, the architecture and the art of this region +are as characteristically Italian as though it had never been outside +the confines of the kingdom. The system of mild and fertile Alpine +valleys which compose the so-called Trentino have an area of about 4,000 +square miles and support a population of 380,000 inhabitants, of whom +375,000, according to a census made by the Austrians themselves, are +Italian. An enclave between Lombardy and Venetia, a rough triangle with +its southern apex at the head of the Lake of Garda, the Trentino, +originally settled by Italian colonists who went forth as early as the +time of the Roman Re<span class="pagenum"><a id="page10" name="page10"></a>Pg 10</span>public, was for centuries an independent Italian +prince-bishopric, being arbitrarily annexed to Austria upon the fall of +Napoleon. In spite of the tyrannical and oppressive measures pursued by +the Austrian authorities in their attempts to stamp out the affection of +the Trentini for their Italian motherland, in spite of the systematic +attempts to Germanicize the region, in spite of the fact that it was an +offense punishable by imprisonment to wear the Italian colors, to sing +the Italian national hymn, or to have certain Italian books in their +possession, the poor peasants of these mountain valleys remained +unswervingly loyal to Italy throughout a century of persecution. Little +did the thousands of American and British tourists who were wont to make +of the Trentino a summer playground, climbing its mountains, fishing in +its rivers, motoring over its superb highways, stopping in its great +hotels, realize the silent but desperate struggle which was in progress +between this handful of Italian exiles and the empire of the Hapsburgs.</p> + +<p>The attitude of the Austrian authorities toward their unwilling subjects +of the Trentino was characterized by a vindictiveness as savage<span class="pagenum"><a id="page11" name="page11"></a>Pg 11</span> as it +was shortsighted. Like the Germans in Alsace, they made the mistake of +thinking that they could secure the loyalty of the people by awing and +terrorizing them, whereas these methods had the effect of hardening the +determination of the Trentini to rid themselves of Austrian rule. Cæsare +Battisti was deputy from Trent to the parliament in Vienna. When war was +declared he escaped from Austria and enlisted in the Italian army, +precisely as hundreds of American colonists joined the Continental Army +upon the outbreak of the Revolution. During the first Austrian offensive +he was captured and sentenced to death, being executed while still +suffering from his wounds. The fact that the rope parted twice beneath +his weight added the final touch to the brutality which marked every +stage of the proceeding. The execution of Battista provided a striking +object-lesson for the inhabitants of the Trentino and of Italy—but not +the sort of object-lesson which the Austrians had intended. Instead of +terrifying them, it but fired them in their determination to end that +sort of thing forever. From Lombardy to Sicily Battista was acclaimed a +hero and a martyr; photo<span class="pagenum"><a id="page12" name="page12"></a>Pg 12</span>graphs of him on his way to execution—an erect +and dignified figure, a dramatic contrast to the shambling, sullen-faced +soldiery who surrounded him—were displayed in every shop-window in the +kingdom; all over Italy streets and parks and schools were named to +perpetuate his memory.</p> + +<p>Had there been in my mind a shadow of doubt as to the justice of Italy's +annexation of the Trentino, it would have been dissipated when, after +dinner, we stood on the balcony of the hotel in the moonlight, looking +down on the great crowd which filled to overflowing the brilliantly +lighted piazza. A military band was playing <i>Garibaldi's Hymn</i> and the +people stood in silence, as in a church, the faces of many of them wet +with tears, while the familiar strains, forbidden by the Austrian under +penalty of imprisonment, rose triumphantly on the evening air to be +echoed by the encircling mountains. At last the exiles had come home. +And from his marble pedestal, high above the multitude, the great statue +of Dante looked serenely out across the valleys and the mountains which +are "unredeemed" no longer.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 519px;"> +<a id="image02" name="image02"> +<img src="images/02.jpg" width="519" height="329" alt="HIS FIRST SIGHT OF THE TERRA IRRIDENTA" title="HIS FIRST SIGHT OF THE TERRA IRRIDENTA" /></a> +<span class="caption">HIS FIRST SIGHT OF THE TERRA IRRIDENTA<br />King Victor Emanuel arriving at Trieste on a destroyer after its +occupation by the Italians</span> +</div> + +<p>Though Italy's original claims in this region,<span class="pagenum"><a id="page13" name="page13"></a>Pg 13</span> as made at the +beginning of the war, included only the so-called Trentino (by which is +generally meant those Italian-speaking districts which used to belong to +the bishopric of Trent) together with those parts of South Tyrol which +are in population overwhelmingly Italian, she has since demanded, and by +the Peace Conference has been awarded, the territory known as the upper +Adige, which comprises all the districts lying within the basin of the +Adige and of its tributary, the Isarco, including the cities of Botzen +and Meran. By the annexation of this region Italy has pushed her +frontier as far north as the Brenner, thereby bringing within her +borders upwards of 180,000 German-speaking Tyrolese who have never been +Italian in any sense and who bitterly resent being transferred, without +their consent and without a plebiscite, to Italian rule.</p> + +<p>The Italians defend their annexation of the Upper Adige by asserting +that Italy's true northern boundary, in the words of Eugène de +Beauharnais, written, when Viceroy of Italy, to his stepfather, +Napoleon, "is that traced by Nature on the summits of the mountains, +where the waters that flow into the Black Sea are di<span class="pagenum"><a id="page14" name="page14"></a>Pg 14</span>vided from those +that flow into the Adriatic." Viewed from a purely geographical +standpoint, Italy's contention that the great semi-circular barrier of +the Alps forms a natural and clearly defined frontier, separating her by +a clean-cut line from the countries to the north, is unquestionably a +sound one. Any one who has entered Italy from the north must have +instinctively felt, as he reached the summit of this mighty mountain +wall and looked down on the warm and fertile slopes sweeping southward +to the plains, "Here Italy begins."</p> + +<p>Italy further justifies her annexation of the German-speaking Upper +Adige on the ground of national security. She must, she insists, possess +henceforward a strong and easily defended northern frontier. She is +tired of crouching in the valleys while her enemies dominate her from +the mountain-tops. Nor do I blame her. Her whole history is punctuated +by raids and invasions launched from these northern heights. But the new +frontier, in the words of former Premier Orlando, "can be defended by a +handful of men, while therefore the defense of the Trentino salient +required half the Italian forces,<span class="pagenum"><a id="page15" name="page15"></a>Pg 15</span> the other half being constantly +threatened with envelopment."</p> + +<p>As I have already pointed out, the annexation of the Upper Adige means +the passing of 180,000 German-speaking Austrians under Italian +sovereignty, including the cities of Botzen and Meran; the ancient +centers of German-Alpine culture, Brixen and Sterzing; of Schloss Tyrol, +which gives the whole country its name; and, above all, of the Parsier +valley, the home of Andreas Hofer, whose life and living memory provide +the same inspiration for the Germans of Tyrol that the exploits and +traditions of Garibaldi do for the Italians.</p> + +<p>That Italy is not insensible to the perils of bringing within her +borders a <i>bloc</i> of people who are not and never will be Italian, is +clearly shown by the following extract from an Italian official +publication:</p> + +<p>"In claiming the Upper Adige, Italy does not forget that the highest +valleys are inhabited by 180,000 Germans, a residuum from the +immigration in the Middle Ages. It is not a problem to be taken +light-heartedly, but it is impossible for Italy to limit herself only to +the Trentino, as that would not give her a satis<span class="pagenum"><a id="page16" name="page16"></a>Pg 16</span>factory military +frontier. From that point of view, the basin of Bolzano (Bozen) is as +strictly necessary to Italy as the Rhine is to France."</p> + +<p>No one has been more zealous in the cause of Italy than I have been; no +one has been more whole-heartedly with the Italians in their splendid +efforts to recover the lands to which they are justly entitled; no one +more thoroughly realizes the agonies of apprehension which Italy has +suffered from the insecurity of her northern borders, or has been more +keenly alive to the grim but silent struggle which has been waged +between her statesmen and her soldiers as to whether the broad +statesmanship which aims at international good-feeling and abstract +justice, or the narrower and more selfish policy dictated by military +necessity, should govern the delimitation of her new frontiers. But, +because I am a friend of Italy, and because I wish her well, I view with +grave misgivings the wisdom of thus creating, within her own borders, a +new <i>terra irredenta</i>; I question the quality of statesmanship which +insists on including within the Italian body politic an alien and +irreconcilable minority which will probably always be a latent source of +trouble, one which may, as the result<span class="pagenum"><a id="page17" name="page17"></a>Pg 17</span> of some unforseen irritation, +break into an open sore. It would seem to me that Italy, in annexing the +Upper Adige, is storing up for herself precisely the same troubles which +Austria did when she held against their will the Italians of the +Trentino, or as Germany did when, in order to give herself a strategic +frontier, she annexed Alsace and Lorraine. When Italy puts forward the +argument that she must hold everything up to the Brenner because of her +fear of invasion by the puny and bankrupt little state which is all that +is left of the Austrian Empire, she is but weakening her case. Her +soundest excuse for the annexation of this region lies in her fear that +a reconstituted and revengeful Germany might some day use the Tyrol as a +gateway through which to launch new armies of invasion and conquest. +But, no matter what her friends may think of the wisdom or justice of +Italy's course, her annexation of the Upper Adige is a <i>fait accompli</i> +which is not likely to be undone. Whether it will prove an act of wisdom +or of shortsightedness only the future can tell.</p> + +<p>The transition from the Italian Trentino to the German Tyrol begins a +few miles south of<span class="pagenum"><a id="page18" name="page18"></a>Pg 18</span> Bozen. Perhaps "occurs" would be a more descriptive +word, for the change from the Latin to the Teutonic, instead of being +gradual, as one would expect, is almost startling in its abruptness. In +the space of a single mile or so the language of the inhabitants changes +from the liquid accents of the Latin to the deep-throated gutturals of +the German; the road signs and those on the shops are now printed in +quaint German script; <i>via</i> becomes <i>weg</i>, <i>strada</i> becomes <i>strasse</i>, +instead of responding to your salutation with a smiling "<i>Bon giorno</i>" +the peasants give you a solemn "<i>Guten morgen</i>." Even the architecture +changes, the slender, four-square campaniles surmounted by bulging +Byzantine domes, so characteristic of the Trentino, giving place to +pointed steeples faced with colored slates or tiles. On the German side +the towns are better kept, the houses better built, the streets wider +and cleaner than in the Italian districts. Instead of the low, +white-walled, red-tiled dwellings so characteristic of Italy, the houses +begin to assume the aspect of Alpine chalets, with carved wooden +balconies and steep-pitched roofs to prevent the settling of the winter +snows. The plastered façades of<span class="pagenum"><a id="page19" name="page19"></a>Pg 19</span> many of the houses are decorated with +gaudily colored frescoes, nearly always of Biblical characters or +scenes, so that in a score of miles the traveler has had the whole story +of the Scriptures spread before him. They are a deeply religious people, +these Tyrolean peasants, as is evidenced not only by the many handsome +churches and the character of the wall-paintings on the houses, but by +the amazing frequency of the wayside shrines, most of which consist of +representations of various phases of the Crucifixion, usually carved and +painted with a most harrowing fidelity of detail. Occasionally we +encountered groups of peasants wearing the picturesque velvet jackets, +tight knee-breeches, heavy woolen stockings and beribboned hats which +one usually associates with the Tyrolean yodelers who still inflict +themselves on vaudeville audiences in the United States. As we sped +northward the landscape changed with the inhabitants, the sunny Italian +countryside, ablaze with flowers and green with vineyards, giving way to +solemn forests, gloomy defiles, and crags surmounted by grim, gray +castles which reminded me of the stage-settings for "Tannhäuser" and +"Lohengrin."</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page20" name="page20"></a>Pg 20</span></p> + +<p>Seen from the summit of the Mendel Pass, the road from Trent to Bozen +looks like a lariat thrown carelessly upon the ground. It climbs +laboriously upward, through splendid evergreen forests, in countless +curves and spirals, loiters for a few-score yards beside the margin of a +tiny crystal lake, and then, refreshed, plunges downward, in a series of +steep white zigzags, to meet the Isarco, in whose company it enters +Bozen. Because the car, like ourselves, was thirsty, we stopped at the +summit of the pass at the tiny hamlet of Madonna di Campiglio—Our Lady +of the Fields—for water and for tea. Should you have occasion to go +that way, I hope that you will take time to stop at the unpretentious +little Hotel Neumann. It is the sort of Tyrolean inn which had, I +supposed, gone out of existence with the war. The innkeeper, a jovial, +white-whiskered fellow, such as one rarely finds off the musical comedy +stage, served us with tea—with rum in it—and hot bread with honey, and +heaping dishes of small wild strawberries, and those pastries which the +Viennese used to make in such perfection. There were five of us, +including the chauffeur and the orderly, and for the food which we<span class="pagenum"><a id="page21" name="page21"></a>Pg 21</span> +consumed I think that the innkeeper charged the equivalent of a dollar. +But, as he explained apologetically, the war had raised prices terribly. +We were the first visitors, it seemed, barring Austrians and a few +Italian officers, who had visited his inn in nearly five years. Both of +his sons had been killed in the war, he told us, fighting bravely with +their Jaeger battalion. The widow of one of his sons—I saw her; a +sweet-faced Austrian girl—with her child, had come to live with him, he +said. Yes, he was an old man, both of his boys were dead, his little +business had been wrecked, the old Emperor Franz-Joseph—yes, we could +see his picture over the fireplace within—had gone and the new Emperor +Karl was in exile, in Switzerland, life had heard; even the Empire in +which he had lived, boy and man, for seventy-odd years, had disappeared; +the whole world was, indeed, turned upside down—but, Heaven be praised, +he had a little grandson who would grow up to carry the business on.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 266px;"> +<a id="image03" name="image03"> +<img src="images/04.jpg" width="266" height="332" alt="THE END OF THE DAY" +title="THE END OF THE DAY" /></a> +<span class="caption">THE END OF THE DAY<br /> +A Tyrolean peasant woman returning from the fields</span> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 268px;"> +<a id="image04" name="image04"> +<img src="images/03.jpg" width="268" height="333" alt="A LITTLE MOTHER OF THE TYROL" +title="A LITTLE MOTHER OF THE TYROL" /></a> +<span class="caption">A LITTLE MOTHER OF THE TYROL<br /> +We gave her some candy: it was the first taste of sugar that she had had +in four years</span> +</div> + +<p>"How do you feel," I asked the old man, "about Italian rule?"</p> + +<p>"They are not our own people," he answered slowly. "Their language is +not our language<span class="pagenum"><a id="page22" name="page22"></a>Pg 22</span> and their ways are not our ways. But they are not an +unkind nor an unjust people and I think that they mean to treat us +fairly and well. Austria is very poor, I hear, and could do nothing for +us if she would. But Italy is young and strong and rich and the officers +who have stopped here tell me that she is prepared to do much to help +us. Who knows? Perhaps it is all for the best."</p> + +<p>Immediately beyond Madonna di Campiglio the highway begins its descent +from the pass in a series of appallingly sharp turns. Hardly had we +settled ourselves in the tonneau before the Sicilian, impatient to be +gone, stepped on the accelerator and the big Lancia, flinging itself +over the brow of the hill, plunged headlong for the first of these +hairpin turns. "Slow up!" I shouted. "Slow up or you'll have us over the +edge!" As the driver's only response to my command was to grin at us +reassuringly over his shoulder, I looked about for a soft place to land. +But there was only rock-plated highway whizzing past and on the outside +the road dropped sheer away into nothingness. We took the first turn +with the near-side wheels in the gutter, the off-side wheels on the +bank, and the<span class="pagenum"><a id="page23" name="page23"></a>Pg 23</span> car tilted at an angle of forty-five degrees. The second +bend we navigated at an angle of sixty degrees, the off-side wheels on +the bank, the near-side wheels pawing thin air. Had there been another +bend immediately following we should have accomplished it upside down. +Fortunately there were no more for the moment, but there remained the +village street of Cles. We pounced upon it like a tiger on its prey. +Shrilling, roaring and honking, we swooped through the ancient town, +zigzagging from curb to curb. The great-great-grandam of the village was +tottering across the street when the blast of the Lancia's siren pierced +the deafness of a century and she sprang for the sidewalk with the +agility of a young gazelle. We missed her by half an inch, but at the +next corner we had better luck and killed a chicken.</p> + +<p>Meran—the Italians have changed its official name to Merano, just as +they have changed Trent to Trento, and Bozen to Bolzano—has always +appealed to me as one of the most charming and restful little towns in +Europe. The last time I had been there, before the war-cloud darkened +the land, its streets were lined with powerful touring cars bearing the +license-<span class="pagenum"><a id="page24" name="page24"></a>Pg 24</span>plates of half the countries in Europe, bands played in the +parks, the shady promenade beside the river was crowded with +pleasure-seekers, and its great tourist hostelries—there were said to +be upwards of 150 hotels and <i>pensions</i> in the town—were gay with +laughter and music. But this time all was changed. Most of the large +hotels were closed, the streets were deserted, the place was as dismal +as a cemetery. It reminded me of a beautiful house which has been closed +because of its owner's financial reverses, the servants discharged, the +windows boarded up, the furniture swathed in linen covers, the carpets +and hangings packed away in mothballs, and the gardens overrun with +weeds. At the Hotel Savoy, where rooms had been reserved for us, it was +necessary, in pre-war days, to wire for accommodations a fortnight in +advance of your arrival, and even then you were not always able to get +rooms. Yet we were the only visitors, barring a handful of Italian +commercial travelers and the Italian governor-general and his staff. The +proprietor, an Austrian, told me that in the four years of war he had +lost $300,000, and that he, like his colleagues, was running his hotel +on borrowed<span class="pagenum"><a id="page25" name="page25"></a>Pg 25</span> money. Of the pre-war visitors to Meran, eighty per cent. +had been Germans, he told me, adding that he could see no prospect of +the town's regaining its former prosperity until Germany is on her +financial feet again. Personally, I think that he and the other +hoteliers and business men with whom I talked in Meran were rather more +pessimistic than the situation warranted, for, if Italy will have the +foresight to do for these new playgrounds of hers in the Alps even a +fraction of what she has done for her resorts on the Riviera, and in +Sicily, and along the Neapolitan littoral, if she will advertise and +encourage and assist them, if she will maintain their superb roads and +improve their railway communications, then I believe that a few years, a +very few, will see them thronged by even greater crowds of visitors than +before the war. And the fact that in the future there will be more +American, English, French and Italian visitors, and fewer Germans, will +make South Tyrol a far pleasanter place to travel in.</p> + +<p>The Italians are fully alive to the gravity of the problems which +confront them in attempting to assimilate a body of people, as<span class="pagenum"><a id="page26" name="page26"></a>Pg 26</span> +courageous, as sturdily independent, and as tenacious of their +traditional independence as these Tyrolean mountaineers—descendants of +those peasants, remember, who, led by Andreas Hofer, successfully defied +the dictates of Napoleon. Though I think that she is going about the +business of assimilating these unwilling subjects with tact and common +sense, I do not envy Italy her task. Generally speaking, the sympathy of +the world is always with a weak people as opposed to a strong one, as +England discovered when she attempted to impose her rule upon the Boers. +Once let the Italian administration of the Upper Adige permit itself to +be provoked into undue harshness (and there will be ample provocation; +be certain of that); once let an impatient and over-zealous +governor-general attempt to bend these stubborn mountaineers too +abruptly to his will; let the local Italian officials provide the +slightest excuse for charges of injustice or oppression, and Italy will +have on her hands in Tyrol far graver troubles than those brought on by +her adventure in Tripolitania.</p> + +<p>Though the Government has announced that Italian must become the +official language of the<span class="pagenum"><a id="page27" name="page27"></a>Pg 27</span> newly acquired region, and that used in its +schools, no attempt will be made to root out the German tongue or to +tamper with the local usages and customs. The upper valleys, where +German is spoken, will not, however, enjoy any form of local autonomy +which would tend to set their inhabitants apart from those of the lower +valleys, for it is realized that such differential treatment would only +serve to retard the process of unification. All of the new districts, +German and Italian-speaking alike, will be included in the new province +of Trent. It is entirely probable that Italy's German-speaking subjects +of the present generation will prove, if not actually irreconcilable, at +least mistrustful and resentful, but, by adhering to a policy of +patience, sympathy, generosity and tact, I can see no reason why the +next generation of these mountaineers should not prove as loyal Italians +as though their fathers had been born under the cross of the House of +Savoy instead of under the double-eagle of the Hapsburgs.</p> + +<p>We crossed the Line of the Armistice into Austria an hour or so beyond +Meran, the road being barred at this point by a swinging beam,<span class="pagenum"><a id="page28" name="page28"></a>Pg 28</span> made +from the trunk of a tree, which could be swung aside to permit the +passage of vehicles, like the bar of an old-fashioned country toll-gate. +Close by was a rude shelter, built of logs, which provided sleeping +quarters for the half-company of infantry engaged in guarding the pass. +One has only to cross the new frontier to understand why Italy was so +desperately insistent on a strategic rectification of her northern +boundary, for whereas, before the war, the frontier ran through the +valleys, leaving the Austrians atop the mountain wall, it is now the +Italians who are astride the wall, with the Austrians in the valleys +below.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 354px;"> +<a id="image05" name="image05"> +<img src="images/05.jpg" width="354" height="518" alt="ITALY'S NEW FRONTIER" +title="ITALY'S NEW FRONTIER" /></a> +<span class="caption">ITALY'S NEW FRONTIER<br /> +A sharp turn on the highroad over the Brenner Pass</span> +</div> + +<p>No sooner had we crossed the Line of the Armistice than we noticed an +abrupt change in the attitude of the population. Even in the +German-speaking districts of the Trentino the inhabitants with whom we +had come in contact had been courteous and respectful, though whether +this was because of, or in spite of, the fact that we were traveling in +a military car, accompanied by a staff-officer, I do not know. Now that +we were actually in Austria, however, this atmosphere of seeming +friendliness entirely disappeared, the men staring insolently at us<span class="pagenum"><a id="page29" name="page29"></a>Pg 29</span> +from under scowling brows, while the women and children, who had less to +fear and consequently were bolder in expressing their feelings, +frequently shouted uncomplimentary epithets at us or shook their fists +as we passed.</p> + +<p>Under the terms of the Armistice, Innsbruck, the capital of Tyrol, was +temporarily occupied by the Italians, who sent into the city a +comparatively small force, consisting in the main of Alpini and +Bersaglieri. Innsbruck was one of the proudest cities of the Austrian +Empire, its inhabitants being noted for their loyalty to the Hapsburgs, +yet I did not observe the slightest sign of resentment toward the +Italian soldiers, who strolled the streets and made purchases in the +shops as unconcernedly as though they were in Milan or Rome. The +Italians, on their part, showed the most marked consideration for the +sensibilities of the population, displaying none of the hatred and +contempt for their former enemies which characterized the French armies +of occupation on the Rhine.</p> + +<p>We found that rooms had been reserved for us at the Tyroler Hof, before +the war one of the famous tourist hostelries of Europe, half of which +had been taken over by the Italian<span class="pagenum"><a id="page30" name="page30"></a>Pg 30</span> general commanding in the Innsbruck +district and his staff. Food was desperately scarce in Innsbruck when we +were there and, had it not been for the courtesy of the Italian +commander in sending us in dishes from his mess, we would have had great +difficulty in getting enough to eat. A typical dinner at the Tyroler Hof +in the summer of 1919 consisted of a mud-colored, nauseous-looking +liquid which was by courtesy called soup, a piece of fish perhaps four +times the size of a postage-stamp, a stew which was alleged to consist +of rabbit and vegetables but which, from its taste and appearance, might +contain almost anything, a salad made of beets or watercress, but +without oil, and for dessert a dish of wild berries, which are abundant +in parts of Tyrol. There was an extra charge for a small cup of black +coffee, so-called, which was made, I imagine, from acorns. This, of +course, was at the best and highest-priced hotels in Innsbruck; at the +smaller hotels the food was correspondingly scarcer and poorer.</p> + +<p>Though the inhabitants of the rural districts appeared to be moderately +well fed, a majority of the people of Innsbruck were manifestly in +urgent need of food. Some of them, indeed,<span class="pagenum"><a id="page31" name="page31"></a>Pg 31</span> were in a truly pitiable +condition, with emaciated bodies, sunken cheeks, unhealthy complexions, +and shabby, badly worn clothes. The meager displays in the shop-windows +were a pathetic contrast to variety and abundance which characterized +them in ante-bellum days, the only articles displayed in any profusion +being picture-postcards, objects carved from wood and similar souvenirs. +The windows of the confectionery and bake-shops were particularly +noticeable for the paucity of their contents. I was induced to enter one +of them by a brave window display of hand-decorated candy boxes, but, +upon investigation, it proved that the boxes were empty and that the +shop had had no candy for four years. The prices of necessities, such as +food and clothing, were fantastic (I saw advertisements of stout, +all-leather boots for rent to responsible persons by the day or week), +but articles of a purely luxurious character could be had for almost +anything one was willing to offer. In one shop I was shown German +field-glasses of high magnification and the finest makes for ten and +fifteen dollars a pair. The local jewelers were driving a brisk trade +with the Italian soldiers, who were lavish purchasers of Aus<span class="pagenum"><a id="page32" name="page32"></a>Pg 32</span>trian war +medals and decorations. Captain Tron bought an Iron Cross of the second +class for the equivalent of thirty cents.</p> + +<p>We left Innsbruck in the early morning with the intention of spending +that night at Cortina d'Ampezzo, but, owing to our unfamiliarity with +the roads and to delays due to tire trouble, nightfall found us lost in +the Dolomites. For mile after mile we pushed on through the darkness +along the narrow, slippery mountain roads, searching for a shelter in +which to pass the night. Occasionally the twin beams from our lamps +would illumine a building beside the road and we, chilled and hungry, +would exclaim "A house at last!" only to find, upon drawing nearer, +that, though it had evidently been once a habitation, it was now but a +shattered, blackened shell, a grim testimonial to the accuracy of +Austrian and Italian gunners. It was late in the evening and bitterly +cold, before, rounding a shoulder of the mountain up whose steep +gradients the car seemed to have been panting for ages, we saw in the +distance the welcome lights of the hamlet of Santa Lucia.</p> + +<p>I do not think that the public has the slightest conception of the +widespread destruction<span class="pagenum"><a id="page33" name="page33"></a>Pg 33</span> and misery wrought by the war in these Alpine +regions. In nearly a hundred miles of motoring in the Cadore, formerly +one of the most delightful summer playgrounds in all Europe, we did not +pass a single building with a whole roof or an unshattered wall. The +hospitable wayside inns, the quaint villages, the picturesque peasant +cottages which the tourist in this region knew and loved are but +blackened ruins now. And the people are gone too—refugees, no doubt, in +the camps which the Government has erected for them near the larger +towns. One no longer hears the tinkle of cow-bells on the mountain +slopes, peasants no longer wave a friendly greeting from their doors: it +is a stricken and deserted land. But Cortina d'Ampezzo, which is the +<i>cheflieu</i> of the Cadore, though still showing many traces of the +shell-storms which it has survived, was quickening into life. The big +tourist hotels at either end of the town, behind which the Italians +emplaced their heavy guns, were being refurnished in anticipation of the +resumption of summer travel and the little shops where they sell +souvenirs were reopening, one by one. But the losses suffered by the +inhabitants of these Alpine<span class="pagenum"><a id="page34" name="page34"></a>Pg 34</span> valleys, desperately serious as they are to +them, are, after all, but insignificant when compared with the enormous +havoc wrought by the armies in the thickly settled Friuli and on the +rich Venetian plains. Every one knows, presumably, that Italy had to +draw more heavily upon her resources than any other country among the +Allies <i>(did you know that she spent in the war more than four-fifths of +her total national wealth?</i>) and that she is bowed down under an +enormous load of taxation and a staggering burden of debt. But what has +been largely overlooked is that she is faced by the necessity of +rebuilding a vast devastated area, in which the conditions are quite as +serious, the need of assistance fully as urgent, as in the devastated +regions of Belgium and France.</p> + +<p>Probably you were not aware that a territory of some three and a half +million acres, occupied by nearly a million and a half people, was +overrun by the Austrians. More than one-half of Venetia is comprised in +that region lying east of the Piave where the wave of Hunnish invasion +broke with its greatest fury. The whole of Udine and Belluno, and parts +of Treviso, Vicenza and Venice suffered the penalty<span class="pagenum"><a id="page35" name="page35"></a>Pg 35</span> of standing in the +path of the Hun. They were prosperous provinces, agriculturally and +industrially, but now both industry and agriculture are almost at a +standstill, for their factories have been burned, their machinery +wrecked or stolen, their livestock driven off and their vineyards +destroyed. The damage done is estimated at 500 million dollars. It is +unnecessary for me to emphasize the seriousness of the problem which +thus confronts the Italian Government. Not only must it provide food and +shelter for the homeless—a problem which it has solved by the erection +of great numbers of wooden huts somewhat similar to the barracks at the +American cantonments—but a great amount of livestock and machinery must +be supplied before industry can be resumed. At one period there was such +desperate need of fuel that even the olive trees, one of the region's +chief sources of revenue, were sacrificed. The Italians have set about +the task of regeneration with an energy that discouragement cannot +check. But the undertaking is more than Italy can accomplish unaided, +for the resources of her other provinces are seriously depleted. We are +fond of talking of the debt we owe to Italy,<span class="pagenum"><a id="page36" name="page36"></a>Pg 36</span> not merely for her +sacrifices in the war, but for all that she has given us in art and +music and literature. Now is the time to show our gratitude.</p> + +<p>From Cortina, which is Italian now, we swung toward the north again, +re-crossed the Line of the Armistice at Tarvis, and, just as night was +falling, came tearing into Villach, which, like Innsbruck, was occupied, +under the terms of the Armistice, by Italian troops. We had great +difficulty in obtaining rooms in Villach, not because there were no +rooms but because we were accompanied by an Italian officer and were +traveling in an Italian car. The proprietors of five hotels, upon seeing +Captain Tron's uniform, curtly declared that every room was occupied. It +was nearly midnight before we succeeded in finding shelter for the +night, and this was obtained only when I made it amply clear to the +Austrian proprietor of the only remaining hotel in the town that we were +not Italians but Americans. The unpleasant impression produced by the +coolness of our reception in Villach was materially increased the +following morning, when Captain Tron greeted us with the news that all +of our lug<span class="pagenum"><a id="page37" name="page37"></a>Pg 37</span>gage, which we had left on the car, had been stolen. It +seemed that thieves had broken into the courtyard of the barracks, where +the car had been locked up for the night, and, in spite of the fact that +the chauffeur was asleep in the tonneau, had stripped it of everything, +including the spare tires. I learned afterwards that robberies of this +sort had become so common since the war as scarcely to provoke comment, +portions of Austria being terrorized by gangs of demobilized soldiers +who, taking advantage of the complete demoralization of the machinery of +government, robbed farmhouses and plundered travelers at will. It is +much the same form of lawlessness, I imagine, which manifested itself +immediately after the close of the Napoleonic Wars, when bands of +discharged soldiers sought in robbery the excitement and booty which +they had formerly found under the eagles. Though the local police +authorities attempted to condone the robbery on the ground that it was +due to the appalling poverty of the population, this excuse did not +reconcile my wife to the loss of her entire wardrobe. As she remarked +vindictively, she felt<span class="pagenum"><a id="page38" name="page38"></a>Pg 38</span> certain that the inhabitants of Villach were +called Villains.</p> + +<p>I wished to visit Klagenfurt, the ancient capital of Carinthia, which is +about twenty miles beyond Villach, because at that time the town, which +is a railway junction of considerable strategic and commercial +importance, threatened to provide the cause for an open break between +the Jugoslavs and the Italians. Though the Italians did not demand the +town for themselves, they had vigorously insisted that, instead of being +awarded to Jugoslavia, it should remain Austrian, for, with the triangle +of which Klagenfurt is the center in the possession of the Jugoslavs, +they would have driven a wedge between Italy and Austria and would have +had under their control the immensely important junction-point where the +main trunk line from Venice to Vienna is joined by the line coming up +from Fiume and Trieste. The Jugoslavs, recognizing that the possession +of Klagenfurt would give them virtual control of the principal railway +entering Austria from the south, and that such control would probably +enable them to divert much of Austria's traffic from the Italian ports +of Venice and Trieste to their own<span class="pagenum"><a id="page39" name="page39"></a>Pg 39</span> port of Fiume, which they +confidently expected would be awarded them by the Peace Conference, lost +no time in occupying the town with a considerable force of troops. They +further justified this occupation by asserting that Jugoslavia was +entitled to Carinthia on ethnological grounds and that the inhabitants +of Klagenfurt were clamoring for Jugoslav rule. In view of these +developments, I had expected to find Jugoslav soldiery in the town, but +I had not expected to be challenged, a mile or so outside the town, by a +sentry who was, judging from his appearance, straight from a <i>comitadji</i> +band in the Macedonian mountains. He was a sullen-faced fellow wearing a +fur cap and a nondescript uniform, with an assortment of weapons thrust +in his belt, according to the custom of the Balkan guerrillas, and with +two bandoliers, stuffed with cartridges, slung across his chest. He was +as incongruous a figure in that pleasant German countryside as one of +Pancho Villa's bandits would have been in the Connecticut Valley. And +Klagenfurt, which is a well-built, well-paved, thoroughly modern +Austrian town, was occupied by several hundred of his fellows, brought +from somewhere in the Balkans, I should im<span class="pagenum"><a id="page40" name="page40"></a>Pg 40</span>agine, for the express +purpose of aweing the population. It was perfectly apparent that the +inhabitants, far from welcoming these fierce-looking fighters as +brother-Slavs and friends, were only too anxious to have them take their +departure, having about as much in common with them, in appearance, +manners and speech, as a New Englander has with an Apache Indian. So +great was the tension existing in Klagenfurt that a commission had been +sent by the Peace Conference to study the question on the spot, its +members communicating with the Supreme Council in Paris by means of +American couriers, slim young fellows in khaki who wore on their arms +the blue brassard, embroidered with the scales of justice, which was the +badge of messengers employed by the Peace Commission.</p> + +<p>A few miles outside of Klagenfurt my attention was attracted by an iron +paling, in a field beside the road, enclosing a gigantic chair carved +from stone. My curiosity aroused, I stopped the car to examine it. From +a faded inscription attached to the gate I learned that this was the +crowning chair of the Dukes of Carinthia, in which the ancient rulers of +this region had sat to be crowned. There it stands<span class="pagenum"><a id="page41" name="page41"></a>Pg 41</span> in a field beside +the highway, neglected and forgotten, a curious link with a picturesque +and far-distant past.</p> + +<p>Our route from Klagenfurt led back through Villach to Tarvis and thence +over the Predil Pass to the Friuli plain and Udine, a journey which we +expected to accomplish in a single day; but there were delays in +re-crossing the Line of the Armistice and other and more serious delays +in the mountains, caused by torrential rains which had in places washed +out the road, so that it was already nightfall when, emerging from the +gloomy defile of the Predil Pass, we saw before us the twinkling lights +of the Alpini cantonment at Caporetto, that mountain hamlet of black +memories where, in the summer of 1917, the Austro-German armies, aided +by bad Italian generalship and Italian treachery, smashed through the +Italian lines and forced them back in a headlong retreat which was +checked only by the heroic stand on the Piave. The Caporetto disaster +would have broken the hearts and annihilated the resistance of a less +courageous people than the Italians. Yet the Italian army, shattered and +disorganized as it was, stopped the triumphant progress of the<span class="pagenum"><a id="page42" name="page42"></a>Pg 42</span> +invaders; stopped it almost without artillery or ammunition, for +hundreds of guns had been abandoned during the retreat; stopped it with +the bodies of Italy's youth, the boys fresh from the training-camps, the +class of 1919, called to the colors two years before their time! They +stopped that victorious rush upon the line of the Piave, a broad, +shallow stream meandering through a flat plain with never a height to +command the enemy's positions, never a physical feature of the terrain +to satisfy the requirements of strategy. Not only was the line of the +Piave held by the Italians against the advice of their Allies, but it +was held in defiance of all the lessons taught by Italian history, for +that the Piave could not be successfully defended has been the judgment +of every military leader since first the barbarians began to sweep down +from the Alps to lay waste the rich Venetian plain. The Italians made +their heroic stand, moreover, without any help from their Allies. That +help came later, it is true, but only after the stand had been made. You +doubt this? Then read this extract from the report of General the Earl +of Caven, who commanded the Allied troops sent to the aid of the +Italians:</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page43" name="page43"></a>Pg 43</span></p> + +<p>"In 1917, in the terrible days which followed the disaster at Caporetto, +I saw, just after my arrival at Venice, the Italian army in full +retreat, and I became convinced that a recovery was impossible before +the arrival of sufficient reenforcement from France and England. But I +was deceived, for shortly afterward I saw the Italian army, which had +seemed to be in the advanced stages of an utter rout, form a solid line +on the Piave and hold it with miraculous persistence, permitting the +English and French reenforcements to take up the positions assigned to +them without once coming in contact with the enemy."</p> + +<p>I have heard it said by critics of Italy that the retreat from Caporetto +showed the lack of courage of the Italian soldier. To gauge the courage +of an army a single disaster is as unjust as it is unintelligent. Was +the rout of the Federal forces at Bull Run a criterion of their behavior +in the succeeding years of the Civil War? Was the surrender at Sedan a +true indication of the fighting ability of the French soldier? Every +nation has had its disasters and has had to live them down. Italy did +this when, on the banks of Piave, she turned her<span class="pagenum"><a id="page44" name="page44"></a>Pg 44</span> greatest disaster into +her most glorious triumph.</p> + +<p>Because it was my privilege to be with the Italian army in the field +during various periods of the war, and because I know at first-hand +whereof I speak, I regret and resent the disparagement of the Italian +soldier which has been so freely indulged in since the Armistice. It may +be, of course, that you do not fully realize the magnitude of Italy's +sacrifices and achievements. Did you know, for example, that Italy held +a front longer than the British, Belgian, French and American fronts put +together? Did you know that out of a population of 37 millions she put +into the field an army of 5 million men, whereas France and her +colonies, with nearly double the population, was never able to raise +more than 5,064,000, a considerable proportion of which were black and +brown men? Did you know that in forty-one months of war Italy lost +541,000 in dead and 953,000 in wounded, and that, unlike France and +England, her armies were composed wholly of white men? Did you know +that, in spite of all that has been said about the Allies giving her +assistance, Italy at all times had more troops on the Western front than +the Allies had on the<span class="pagenum"><a id="page45" name="page45"></a>Pg 45</span> Italian? Did you know that she called up the +class of 1919 two years before their time, a measure which even France, +hard-pressed as she was, did not feel justified in taking? (I have +mentioned this before, but it will bear repetition.) Have you stopped to +think that she was the only one of the Allied nations which won a +clean-cut and decisive victory, when, on the Piave, she attacked with 51 +divisions an Austro-German army of 63 divisions, completely smashed it, +forced its surrender, and captured half a million prisoners? Did you +know that she lost more than fifty-seven per cent, of her merchant +tonnage, while England lost less than forty-three per cent, and France +less than forty per cent.? And, finally, had you realized that Italy +made greater sacrifices, in proportion to her resources and population, +than any other country engaged in the war, having devoted four-fifths of +her entire national wealth to the prosecution of the struggle? There is +your answer, chapter and verse, for the next man who sneeringly remarks, +"The Italians didn't do much, did they?"</p> + +<p>Just as the Trentino and the Upper Adige have been added to the kingdom +as the Prov<span class="pagenum"><a id="page46" name="page46"></a>Pg 46</span>ince of Trent, so the redeemed regions of which Trieste is +the center, including the towns of Gorizia, Monfalcone, Capodistria, +Parenzo, Pirano, Rovigno and Pola, have been consolidated in the new +province of Julian Venetia, with about a million inhabitants and an area +of approximately 6,000 square miles.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 551px;"> +<a id="image06" name="image06"> +<img src="images/06.jpg" width="551" height="336" alt="THIS IS NOT VENICE, AS YOU MIGHT SUPPOSE, BUT TRIESTE" +title="THIS IS NOT VENICE, AS YOU MIGHT SUPPOSE, BUT TRIESTE" /></a> +<span class="caption">THIS IS NOT VENICE, AS YOU MIGHT SUPPOSE, BUT TRIESTE<br /> + +The sails of the fishing craft are of many colors, yellow, burnt-orange, +vermilion. At the head of the canal, its stately columns reflected in +the turquoise waters, the Bourse rises like some ancient Roman temple</span> +</div> + +<p>Trieste, which, with its suburbs, has a population of not far from +400,000, with its splendid terminal facilities, its vast harbor-works, +its dry-docks and foundries, its railway communications with the +hinterland, and, above all else, its position as the natural outlet for +the trade of Austria, Bavaria and Czecho-Slovakia, constitutes not only +Italy's most valuable prize of war, but, everything considered, probably +the most important city, commercially at least, to change hands as a +result of the conflict. Curiously enough, Trieste is the least +interesting city of its size, from a visitor's point of view, that I +know. Venice always reminds me of a beautiful and charmingly gowned +woman, perpetually young, interested in art, in music, in literature, +always ready for a stroll, a dance or a flirtation. Trieste, on the +contrary, is a busy, preoccupied, rather brusque business man,<span class="pagenum"><a id="page47" name="page47"></a>Pg 47</span> wholly +self-made, who has never devoted much time to devote to pleasure because +he has been too busy making his fortune. Venice says, "If you want a +good time, let me show you how to spend your money." But Trieste growls, +"If you want to get rich, let me show you how to invest your money." The +city has broad and well-kept streets bordered by the same sort of +four-and five-and six-story buildings of brick and stone which you find +in any European commercial city; it has several unusually spacious +piazzas on which front some really pretentious buildings; it has a few +arches and doorways dating from the Roman period, though far better ones +can be found in almost any town on the Italian peninsula; on the hill +commanding the city there are an old Austrian fort and an ancient +church, both chiefly interesting for the views they command of the +harbor and the coast of Istria; some of the most abominably rough +pavements which I have ever encountered in any city; one hotel which +just escapes being excellent and several which do not escape being bad; +and a harbor, together with the wharves and moles and machinery which go +with it, which is the Triestino's pride and joy.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page48" name="page48"></a>Pg 48</span></p> + +<p>To my way of thinking the most interesting sight in Trieste is a small +château, built in the castellated fashion which had a considerable vogue +in America shortly after the close of the Civil War, which stands amid +most beautiful gardens on the edge of the sea, two or three miles to the +west of the city. This is the Château of Miramar, formerly the residence +of the young Austrian Archduke Maximilian, who, dazzled by the dream of +life on an imperial throne, accepted an invitation to become Emperor of +Mexico and a few years later fell before a Mexican firing-party on the +slopes of Queretaro. Though the château has now passed into the +possession of the Italian Government it is still in charge of the aged +custodian who, as a youth, was body-servant to Maximilian. Barring the +fact that the paintings and certain pieces of furniture had been removed +to Vienna to save from injury by aerial bombardment, the interior of the +château is much as Maximilian left it when he set out with his bride, +Carlotta, the sister of the late King Leopold of the Belgians, on his +ill-fated adventure. In the study on the ground floor hangs a +photograph, still sharp and clear after the lapse of half a cen<span class="pagenum"><a id="page49" name="page49"></a>Pg 49</span>tury, of +the members of the delegation—swarthy men in the high cravats and long +frock-coats of the period, some of them wearing the stars and sashes of +orders—who came to Miramar to offer Maximilian the Mexican crown. The +old custodian told me that he witnessed the scene and he pointed out to +me where his young master and the other actors in this, the first act of +the tragedy, stood. How little could the youthful Emperor have dreamed, +as he set sail for those distant shores, that the day would come when +the Dual Monarchy would go down in ruins, when the ancient dynasty of +the Hapsburgs would come to an inglorious end, and when the garden paths +where he and his beautiful young bride used to saunter in the moonlight +would be paced by Italian carabineers.</p> + +<p>If you will get out the atlas and turn to the map of Italy you will +notice at the head of the Adriatic a peninsula shaped like the head of +an Indian arrow, its tip aimed toward the unprotected flank of Italy's +eastern coast. This arrow-shaped peninsula is Istria. In the western +notch of the arrowhead, toward Italy, is Trieste—terminus of the +railway to Vienna. In the opposite notch is Fiume—terminus of the<span class="pagenum"><a id="page50" name="page50"></a>Pg 50</span> +railway which runs across Croatia and Hungary to Budapest. And at the +very tip of the arrow, as though it had been ground to a deadly +sharpness, is Pola, formerly Austria's greatest naval base. Dotting the +western coast of Istria, between Trieste and Pola, are four small +towns—Parenzo, Pirano, Capodistria and Rovigno—all purely and +distinctively Italian, and, on the other side of the peninsula, the +famous resort of Abbazia, popular with wealthy Hungarians and with the +yachtsmen of all nations before the war.</p> + +<p>Parenzo, Pirano, Capodistria and Rovigno were all outposts of the +Venetian Republic, forming an outer line of defense against the Slav +barbarians of the interior. Everything about them speaks of Venice: the +snarling Lion of St. Mark which is carved above their gates and +surmounts the marble columns in their piazzas; their old, old +churches—the one at Parenzo was built in the sixth century, being +copied after the famous basilica at Ravenna, across the Adriatic—the +interiors of many of them adorned, like that of St. Mark's in Venice, +with superb mosaics of gold and semi-precious stones; the carved lions' +heads, <i>bocca<span class="pagenum"><a id="page51" name="page51"></a>Pg 51</span> del leone</i>, for receiving secret missives; the delicate +tracery above the doors and windows of the palazzos, and all those other +architectural features so characteristic of the City of the Doges. There +is no questioning what these Istrian coast-towns were or are. They are +as Italian to-day as when, a thousand years ago, they formed a part of +Venice's far-flung skirmish line. But penetrate even a single mile into +the interior of the peninsula and you find a wholly different race from +these Latins of the littoral, a different architecture (if architecture +can be applied to square huts built of sun-dried bricks) and a different +tongue. These people are the Croats, a hardy, industrious agricultural +people, generally illiterate, at least as I found them in Istria, and +with few of the comforts and none of the culture which characterized the +Latin communities on the coast. In short, the towns of the western coast +are undeniably Italian; the rest of the peninsula is solidly Slav.</p> + +<p>The interior of Istria consists, in the main, of a barren, monotonous +and peculiarly unlovely limestone plateau known as the Karst, a +continuation of that waterless and treeless ridge, called by Italians +the Carso, which stretches<span class="pagenum"><a id="page52" name="page52"></a>Pg 52</span> from Trieste northwestward to Goritzia and +beyond. With the exception of the Bukovica of Dalmatia and the lava-beds +of southern Utah, the Istrian Karst is the most utterly hopeless region, +from the standpoint of agriculture, that I know. It is dotted with many +small farmsteads, it is true, but one marvels at the courage and +patience which their peasant owners displayed in their unequal struggle +with Nature. The rocky surface is covered with a stunted, +discouraged-looking vegetation which reminded me of that clothing the +flanks of the mountains in the vicinity of the Roosevelt Dam, in +Arizona, and here and there are vast rolling moors, uninhabited by man +or animal, as desolate, mysterious and repelling as that depicted by Sir +Arthur Conan Doyle in <i>The Hound of the Baskervilles</i>. The Karst, like +the Carso, is dotted with curious depressions called <i>dolinas</i>, some of +them as much as 100 feet in depth, the floors of which, varying in +extent from a few square yards to several acres, are covered with soil +which is as rich as the surface of the surrounding plateau is worthless. +Because of the fertility of these singular depressions, and their +immunity from the cold winds which in winter<span class="pagenum"><a id="page53" name="page53"></a>Pg 53</span> sweep the surface of the +Karst, they are utilized by the peasants for growing fruits, vegetables +and, in some cases, small patches of grain, being, in effect, sunken +gardens provided by Nature as though to recompense the Istrians, in some +measure, for their discouraging struggle for existence.</p> + +<p>Just behind the very tip of the peninsula, on the edge of a superb +natural harbor, the entrance to which is masked by the Brioni Islands, +is the great naval base of Pola, from the shelter of whose +fortifications and mined approaches the Austrian fleet was able to +terrorize the defenseless towns along Italy's unprotected eastern +seaboard and to menace the commerce of the northern Adriatic. Pola Is a +strange mélange of the ancient and the modern, for from the topmost +tiers of the great Roman Arena—scarcely less imposing than the Coliseum +at Rome—we looked down upon a harbor dotted with the fighting monsters +of the Italian navy, while all day long Italian seaplanes swooped and +circled over the splendid arch, erected by a Roman emperor in the dim +dawn of European history, to commemorate his triumph over the +barbarians.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page54" name="page54"></a>Pg 54</span></p> + +<p>It is just such anomalies as these that make almost impossible the +solution, on a basis of strict justice to the inhabitants, of the +Adriatic problem. Here you see a city that, in history, in population, +in language, is as characteristically Italian as though it were under +the shadow of the Apennines, yet encircling that city is a countryside +whose inhabitants are wholly Slav, who are intensely hostile to Italian +institutions, and many of whom have no knowledge whatsoever of the +Italian tongue. The Italians claim that Istria should be theirs because +of the undoubted Latin character of the towns along its coasts, because +their Roman and Venetian ancestors established their outposts here long +centuries ago, because the only culture that the region possesses is +Italian, and, above all else, because its possession is essential to the +safety of Italy herself. The Slavs, on the other hand, lay claim to +Istria on the ground that its first inhabitants, whether barbarians or +not, were Slavs, that the Italians who settled on its shores were but +filibusters and adventurers, and that its inhabitants, by blood, by +language, and by sentiment, are overwhelmingly Slav to-day. The only +thing on which both races agree is that the<span class="pagenum"><a id="page55" name="page55"></a>Pg 55</span> peninsula should not be +divided. It was no easy problem, you see, which the peace-makers were +expected to solve with strict justice for all. If my memory serves me +right, King Solomon was once called upon by two mothers to settle a +somewhat similar dispute, though in that case it was a child instead of +a country whose ownership was in question. So, though both Latins and +Slavs may continue to assert their rights to the peninsula in its +entirety, I imagine that the Istrian problem will eventually be settled +by the judgment of Solomon.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page56" name="page56"></a>Pg 56</span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER II</h2> + +<h3>THE BORDERLAND OF SLAV AND LATIN</h3> + + +<p>It was the same along the entire line of the Armistice from the Brenner +down to Istria. Whenever the officials with whom we talked heard that we +were going to Fiume, they shook their heads pessimistically. "It's a +good place to stay away from just now," said one. "They won't let you +enter the city," another warned us. Or, "You mustn't think of taking the +<i>signora</i> with you." But the representative of an American oil company +whom I met in the American consulate in Trieste regarded the excursion +from a different view-point altogether.</p> + +<p>"Be sure to stop at the Europa," he urged me. "It's right on the +water-front, and there isn't a better place in the city to see what's +happening. I was there last week when the mob<span class="pagenum"><a id="page57" name="page57"></a>Pg 57</span> attacked the French +Annamite troops. Believe me, friend, that was one hellish business ... +they literally cut those poor little Chinks into pieces. I saw the whole +thing from my window. I'm going back to Fiume to-morrow, and if you like +I'll tell the manager of the Europa to save you a front room."</p> + +<p>His tone was that of a New Yorker telling a friend from up-State that he +would reserve him a room in a Fifth Avenue hotel from which to view a +parade.</p> + +<p>As things turned out, however, we did not have occasion to avail +ourselves of this offer, for we found that rooms had been reserved for +us at a hotel in Abbazia, just across the bay from Fiume. This +arrangement was due to the Italian military governor, General Grazioli, +who was perfectly aware that the inhabitants of Fiume were not hanging +out any "Welcome-to-Our-City" signs for foreigners, particularly for +foreigners who were country people of President Wilson, and that the +fewer Americans there were in the town the less danger there was of +anti-American demonstrations. In view of what had happened to the +Annamites I had no overpowering desire to be the center of<span class="pagenum"><a id="page58" name="page58"></a>Pg 58</span> a similar +demonstration. Pursuant to this arrangement we slept in a great barn of +a hotel whose echoing corridors had, in happier days, been a favorite +resort of the wealth and fashion of Hungary, but whose once costly +furniture had been sadly dilapidated by the spurred boots of the +Austrian staff officers who had used it as a headquarters; in the +mornings we had our sugarless coffee and butterless war-bread on a lofty +balcony commanding a superb panorama of the Istrian coast from Icici to +Volosca and of the island-studded Bay of Quarnero, and commuted to and +from Fiume in the big gray Lancia in which we had traveled along the +line of the Armistice for upward of 2,000 miles.</p> + +<p>We had our first view of the Unredeemed City (though it was really not +my first view, as I had been there before the war) from a curve in the +road where it suddenly emerges from the woods of evergreen laurel above +Volosca to drop in steep white zigzags to the sea. It is superbly +situated, this ancient city over whose possession Slav and Latin are +growling at each other like dogs over a disputed bone. With its snowy +buildings spread on the slopes of a shallow amphitheater between the +sapphire<span class="pagenum"><a id="page59" name="page59"></a>Pg 59</span> waters of the Adriatic and the barren flanks of the Istrian +Karst, it suggested a lovely siren, all glistening and white, who had +emerged from the sea to lie upon the bare brown breast of a mountain +giant.</p> + +<p>The car, with its exhaust wide open, for your Italian driver delights in +noise, roared down the grade at express-train speed, took the hairpin +curve at the bottom on two wheels, to be brought to an abrupt halt with +an agonized squealing of brakes, our further progress being barred by a +six-inch tree-trunk which had been lowered across the road like a +barrier at an old-time country toll-gate. At one side of the road was a +picket of Italian carabinieri in field-gray uniforms, their huge cocked +hats rendered a shade less anachronistic by covers of gray linen, with +carbines slung over their shoulders, hunter fashion. On the opposite +side of the highway was a patrol of British sailors in white drill +landing-kit, their rosy, smiling faces in striking contrast to the +saturnine countenances of the Italians. (I might explain, +parenthetically, that Fiume, being in theory under the jurisdiction of +the Peace Conference, was at this time occupied by about a thousand +French<span class="pagenum"><a id="page60" name="page60"></a>Pg 60</span> troops, the same number of British, a few score American +blue-jackets, and nearly 10,000 Italians.) The sergeant in command of +the carabinieri stepped up to the car, saluted, and curtly asked for our +papers. I produced them. Among them was a pass authorizing us to go when +and where we pleased in the territory occupied by the Italian forces. It +had been given to me by the Minister of War himself, but it made about +as much impression on the sergeant as though it had been signed by +Charlie Chaplin.</p> + +<p>"This is good only for Italy," he said. "It will not take you across the +line of the Armistice."</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 477px;"> +<a id="image07" name="image07"> +<img src="images/07.jpg" width="477" height="322" alt="AT THE GATES OF FIUME" +title="AT THE GATES OF FIUME" /></a> +<span class="caption">AT THE GATES OF FIUME<br /> +Major Powell (second from left), Mrs. Powell, Captain Tron of the +Italian Comando Supremo, and the car in which they travelled 1,000 +miles</span> +</div> + +<p>Thereupon I played my last trump. I produced an imposing document which +had been given me by the Italian peace delegation in Paris. It had +originally been issued by the Orlando-Sonnino cabinet, but upon the fall +of that government I had had it countersigned, before leaving Rome, by +the Nitti cabinet. It was addressed to all the military, naval, and +civil authorities of Italy, and was so flatteringly worded that it would +have satisfied St. Peter himself. But the sergeant was not in the +least<span class="pagenum"><a id="page61" name="page61"></a>Pg 61</span> impressed. He read it through deliberately, scrutinized the +official seals, examined the watermark, and then disappeared into a +sentry-box on the roadside. I could hear him talking, evidently over a +telephone. Presently he emerged and signaled to his men to raise the +barrier. "Passo," he said grudgingly, in a tone which intimated that he +was letting us enter the jealously guarded portals of Fiume against his +better judgment, the bar swung upward, the big car leaped forward like a +race-horse that feels the spur, and in another moment we were rolling +through the tree-arched, stone-paved streets of the most-talked-of city +in the world. As we sped down the Corsia Deák we passed a large hotel +which, as was quite evident, had recently been renamed, for the words +"Albergo d'Annunzio" were fresh and staring. But underneath was the +former name, which had been so imperfectly obliterated that it could +still easily be deciphered. It was "Hotel Wilson."</p> + +<p>To correctly visualize Fiume you must imagine a town no larger than +Atlantic City crowded upon a narrow shelf between a towering mountain +wall and the sea; a town with broad and moderately clean streets, +shaded,<span class="pagenum"><a id="page62" name="page62"></a>Pg 62</span> save in the center of the city, by double rows of stately trees +and paved with large square flagstones which make abominably rough +riding; a town with several fine thoroughfares bordered by +well-constructed four-story buildings of brick and stone; with numerous +surprisingly well-stocked shops; with miles and miles of concrete moles +and wharfs, equipped with harbor machinery of the most modern +description, and adjacent to them rows of warehouses as commodious as +the Bush Terminals in Brooklyn, and rising here and there above the +trees and the housetops, like fingers pointing to heaven, the graceful +campaniles of fine old churches, one of which, the cathedral, was +already old when the Great Navigator turned the prows of his caravels +westward from Cadiz in quest of this land we live in.</p> + +<p>Fiume lacks none of the conditions which make a great seaport: there is +deep water and a convenient approach, which is protected against the +ocean and against a hostile fleet by the islands of Veglia and Cherso +and against the north winds by the rocky plateau of the Karst. Yet, +despite its natural advantages and the millions which were spent in its +develop<span class="pagenum"><a id="page63" name="page63"></a>Pg 63</span>ment by the Hungarian Government, Fiume never developed into a +port of the size and importance which the foreign commerce of Hungary +would have seemed to require, this being largely due to its unfortunate +geographical condition, for the dreary and inhospitable Karst completely +shuts the city off from the interior, the numerous tunnels and steep +gradients making rail transport by this route difficult and consequently +expensive.</p> + +<p>The public life of the city centers in the Piazza Adamich, a broad +square on which front numerous hotels, restaurants, and coffee-houses, +before which lounge, from midmorning until midnight, a considerable +proportion of the Italian population, sipping <i>café nero</i>, or tall +drinks concocted from sweet, bright-colored syrups, scanning the papers +and discussing, with much noise and gesticulation, the political +situation and the doings of the peace commissioners in Paris. Save only +Barcelona, Fiume has the most excitable and irritable population of any +city that I know. When we were there street disturbances were as +frequent as dog-fights used to be in Constantinople before the Turks +recognized that the best gloves are made from dog<span class="pagenum"><a id="page64" name="page64"></a>Pg 64</span>skins. As I have said, +a few days before our arrival a mob had attacked and killed in most +barbarous fashion a number of Annamite soldiers who were guarding a +French warehouse on the quay. Several prominent Fumani with whom I +talked attempted to justify the massacre on the ground that a French +sailor had torn a ribbon bearing the motto "<i>Italia o Morte</i>!" from the +breast of a woman of the town. They did not seem to regret the affair or +to realize that it is just such occurrences which lead the Peace +Conference to question the wisdom of subjecting the city's Slav minority +to that sort of rule. As a result of the tense atmosphere which +prevailed in the city, the nerves of the population were so on edge that +when my car back-fired with a series of violent explosions, the loungers +in front of a near-by café jumped as though a bomb had been thrown among +them. The patron saint of Fiume is, appropriately enough, St. Vitus.</p> + +<p>In discussing the question of Fiume the mistake is almost invariably +made of considering it as a single city, whereas it really consists of +two distinct communities, Fiume and Sussak, bitterly antagonistic and +differing in race, re<span class="pagenum"><a id="page65" name="page65"></a>Pg 65</span>ligion, language, politics, customs, and thought. +A small river, the Rieka, no wider than the Erie Canal, divides the city +into two parts, one Latin the other Slav, very much as the Rio Grande +separates the American city of El Paso from the Mexican town of Ciudad +Juarez. On the left or west bank of the river is Fiume, with +approximately 40,000 inhabitants, of whom very nearly three-fourths are +Italian. Here are the wharfs, the harbor works, the rail-head, the +municipal buildings, the hotels, and the business districts. But cross +the Rieka by the single wooden bridge which connects Fiume with Sussak +and you find yourself in a wholly different atmosphere. In a hundred +paces you pass from a city which is three-quarters Italian to a town +which is overwhelmingly Slav. There are about 4,500 people in Sussak, of +whom only one-eighth are Italian. But let it be perfectly clear that +Sussak is not Fiume. In proclaiming its annexation to Italy on the +ground of self-determination, the National Council of Fiume did not +include Sussak, which is a Croatian village in historically Croatian +territory. It will be seen, therefore, that Sussak, which is not a part +of Fiume but an entirely separate mu<span class="pagenum"><a id="page66" name="page66"></a>Pg 66</span>nicipality, does not enter into the +question at all. As for the territory immediately adjacent to Fiume on +the north and east, it is as Slav as though it were in the heart of +Serbia. To put it briefly, Fiume is an Italian island entirely +surrounded by Slavs.</p> + +<p>The violent self-assertiveness of the Fumani may be attributed to the +large measure of autonomy which they have always enjoyed, Fiume's status +as a free city having been definitely established by Ferdinand I in +1530, recognized by Maria Theresa in 1776 when she proclaimed it "a +separate body annexed to the crown of Hungary," and by the Hungarian +Government finally confirmed in 1868. Louis Kossuth admitted its +extraterritorial character when he said that, even though the Magyar +tongue should be enforced elsewhere as the medium of official +communication, he considered that an exception "should be made in favor +of a maritime city whose vocation was to welcome all nations led thither +by commerce."</p> + +<p>Though the Italian element of the population vociferously asserts its +adherence to the slogan "<i>Italia o Morte</i>!" I am convinced that many of +the more substantial and far-seeing<span class="pagenum"><a id="page67" name="page67"></a>Pg 67</span> citizens, if they dared freely to +express their opinions, would be found to favor the restoration of the +city's ancient autonomy under the ægis of the League of Nations. The +Italians of Flume are at bottom, beneath their excitable and mercurial +temperaments, a shrewd business people who have the commercial future of +their city at heart. And they are intelligent enough to realize that, +unless there be established some stable form of government which will +propitiate the Slav minority as well as the Italian majority, the Slav +nations of the hinterland will almost certainly divert their trade, on +which Fiume's commercial importance entirely depends, to some +non-Italian port, in which event the city would inevitably retrograde to +the obscure fishing village which it was less than half a century ago.</p> + +<p>In order that you may have before you a clear and comprehensive picture +of this most perplexing and dangerous situation, which is so fraught +with peril for the future peace of the world, suppose that I sketch for +you, in the fewest word-strokes possible, the arguments of the rival +claimants for fair Fiume's hand. Italy's claims may be classified under +three<span class="pagenum"><a id="page68" name="page68"></a>Pg 68</span> heads: sentimental, commercial, and political. Her sentimental +claims are based on the ground that the city's population, character, +and history are overwhelmingly Italian. I have already stated that the +Italians constitute about three-fourths of the total population of +Fiume, the latest figures, as quoted in the United States Senate, giving +29,569 inhabitants to the Italians and 14,798 to the Slavs. There is no +denying that the city has a distinctively Italian atmosphere, for its +architecture is Italian, that Venetian trademark, the Lion of St. Mark, +being in evidence on several of the older buildings; the mode of outdoor +life is such as one meets in Italy; most of its stores and banks are +owned by Italians, and Italian is the prevailing tongue. The claim that +the city's history is Italian is, however, hardly borne out by history +itself, for in the sixteen centuries which have elapsed since the fall +of the Roman Empire, Fiume has been under Italian rule—that of the +republic of Venice—for just four days.</p> + +<p>The commercial reason underlying Italy's insistence on obtaining control +of Fiume is due to the fact that Italians are convinced that should +Fiume pass into either neutral or Jugo<span class="pagenum"><a id="page69" name="page69"></a>Pg 69</span>slav hands, it would mean the +commercial ruin of Trieste, where enormous sums of Italian money have +been invested. They assert, and with sound reasoning, that the Slavs of +the hinterland, and probably the Germans and Magyars as well, would ship +through Fiume, were it under Slav or international control, instead of +through Trieste, which is Italian. One does not need to be an economist +to realize that if Fiume could secure the trade of Jugoslavia and the +other states carved from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the commercial +supremacy of Trieste, which depends upon this same hinterland, would +quickly disappear. On the other hand, those Italians whose vision has +not been distorted by their passions clearly foresee that, should the +final disposition of Fiume prove unacceptable to the Jugoslavs, they +will almost certainly divert the trade of the interior to some Slav +port, leaving Fiume to drowse in idleness beside her moss-grown wharfs +and crumbling warehouses, dreaming dreams of her one-time prosperity.</p> + +<p>Italy's third reason for insisting on the cession of Fiume is political, +and, because it is based on a deep-seated and haunting fear, it is,<span class="pagenum"><a id="page70" name="page70"></a>Pg 70</span> +perhaps, the most compelling reason of all. Italy does not trust the +Jugoslavs. She cannot forget that the Austrian and Hungarian fractions +of the new Jugoslav people—in other words, the Slovenes and +Croats—were the most faithful subjects of the Dual Monarchy, fighting +for the Hapsburgs with a ferocity and determination hardly surpassed in +the war. Unlike the Poles and Czecho-Slovaks, who threw in their lot +with the Allies, the Slovenes and Croats fought, and fought desperately, +for the triumph of the Central Empires. Had these two peoples turned +against their masters early in the war, the great struggle would have +ended months, perhaps years, earlier than it did. Yet, within a few days +after the signing of the Armistice, they became Jugoslavs, and announced +that they have always been at heart friendly to the Allies. But, so the +Italians argue, their conversion has been too sudden: they have changed +their flag but not their hearts; their real allegiance is not to +Belgrade but to Berlin. The Italian attitude toward these peoples who +have so abruptly switched from enemies to allies is that of the American +soldier for the Filipino:</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page71" name="page71"></a>Pg 71</span></p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"He may be a brother of William H. Taft,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But he ain't no brother of mine."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The Italians are convinced that the three peoples who have been so +hastily welded into Jugoslavia will, as the result of internal +jealousies and dissensions, eventually disintegrate, and that, when the +break-up comes, those portions of the new state which formerly belonged +to Austria-Hungary will ally themselves with the great Teutonic or, +perhaps, Russo-Teutonic, confederation which, most students of European +affairs believe, will arise from the ruins of the Central Empires. When +that day comes the new power will look with hungering eyes toward the +rich markets which fringe the Middle Sea, and what more convenient +gateway through which to pour its merchandise—and, perhaps, its +fighting men—than Fiume in friendly hands? In order to bar forever +this, the sole gateway to the warm water still open to the Hun, the +Italians should, they maintain, be made its guardians.</p> + +<p>"But," you argue, "suppose Jugoslavia does <i>not</i> break up? How can +14,000,000 Slavs seriously menace Italy's 40,000,000?"</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page72" name="page72"></a>Pg 72</span></p> + +<p>Ah! Now you touch the very heart of the whole matter; now you have put +your finger on the secret fear which has animated Italy throughout the +controversy over Fiume and Dalmatia. For I do not believe that it is a +reincarnated Germany which Italy dreads. It is something far more +ominous, more terrifying than that, which alarms her. For, looking +across the Adriatic, she sees the monstrous vision of a united and +aggressive Slavdom, untold millions strong, of which the Jugoslavs are +but the skirmish-line, ready to dispute not merely Italy's schemes for +the commercial mastery of the Balkans but her overlordship of that sea +which she regards as an Italian lake.</p> + +<p>Jugoslavia's claims to Fiume are more briefly stated. Firstly, she lays +title to it on the ground that geographically Fiume belongs to Croatia, +and that Croatia is now a part of Jugoslavia, or, to give the new +country its correct name, the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and +Slovenes. This claim is, I think, well founded, and this despite the +fact that Italy has attempted to prove, by means of innumerable +pamphlets and maps, that Fiume, being within the great semi-circular +wall formed by the Alps, is physically<span class="pagenum"><a id="page73" name="page73"></a>Pg 73</span> Italian. The Jugoslavs demand +Fiume, secondly, because, they assert, if Fiume and Sussak are +considered as a single city, that city has more Slavs than Italians, +while the population of the hinterland is almost solidly Croatian. With +the first half of this claim I cannot agree. As I have already pointed +out, Sussak is not, and never has been, a part of Fiume, and its +annexation is not demanded by the Italians. Conceding, however, for the +sake of argument, that Fiume and Sussak are parts of the same city, the +most reliable figures which I have been able to obtain show that, even +were the Slav majority in Sussak added to the Slav minority in Fiume, +the Slavs would still be able to muster barely more than a third of the +total population. By far the strongest title which the Slavs have to the +city, and the one which commands for them the greatest sympathy, is +their assertion that Fiume is the natural and, indeed, almost the only +practicable commercial outlet for Jugoslavia, and that the struggling +young state needs it desperately. In reply to this, the Italians point +out that there are numerous harbors along the Dalmatian coast which +would answer the needs of Jugoslavia as well, or<span class="pagenum"><a id="page74" name="page74"></a>Pg 74</span> almost as well, as +Fiume. Now, I am speaking from first-hand knowledge when I assert that +this is not so, for I have seen with my own eyes every harbor, or +potential harbor, on the eastern coast of the Adriatic from Istria to +Greece. As a matter of fact, the entire coast of Dalmatia would not make +up to the Jugoslavs for the loss of Fiume. The map gives no idea of the +city's importance as the southernmost point at which a standard-gauge +railway reaches the Adriatic, for the railway leading to Ragusa, to +which the Italians so repeatedly refer as providing an outlet for +Jugoslavia, is not only narrow-gauge but is in part a rack-and-pinion +mountain line. The situation is best summed up by the commander of the +American war-ship on which I dined at Spalato.</p> + +<p>"It is not a question of finding a good harbor for the Jugoslavs," he +said. "This coast is rich in splendid harbors. It is a question, rather, +of finding a practicable route for a standard-gauge railway over or +through the mile-high range of the Dinaric Alps, which parallel the +entire coast, shutting the coast towns off from the hinterland. Until +such a railway is built, the peoples of the interior have<span class="pagenum"><a id="page75" name="page75"></a>Pg 75</span> no means of +getting their products down to the coast save through Fiume. Italy +already has the great port of Trieste. Were she also to be awarded Fiume +she would have a strangle-hold on the trade of Jugoslavia which would +probably mean that country's commercial ruin."</p> + +<p>I have now given you, as fairly as I know how, the principal arguments +of the rival claimants. The Italians of Fiume, as I have already shown, +outnumber the Slavs almost three to one, and it is they who are +demanding so violently that the city should be annexed to Italy on the +ground of self-determination. But I do not believe that, because there +is an undoubted Italian majority in Fiume, the city should be awarded to +Italy. If Italy were asking only what was beyond all shadow of question +Italian, I should sympathize with her unreservedly. But to place 10,000 +Slavs under Italian rule would be as unjust and as provocative of future +trouble as to place 30,000 Italians under the rule of Belgrade. Nor is +the cession of the city itself the end of Italy's claims, for, in order +to place it beyond the range of the enemy's guns (by the "enemy" she +means her<span class="pagenum"><a id="page76" name="page76"></a>Pg 76</span> late allies, the Serbs), in order to maintain control of the +railways entering the city, and in order to bring the city actually +within her territorial borders, she desires to extend her rule over +other thousands of people who are not Italian, who do not speak the +Italian tongue, and who do not wish Italian rule. Italy has no stancher +friend than I, but neither my profound admiration for what she achieved +during the war nor my deep sympathy for the staggering losses she +suffered can blind me to the unwisdom, let us call it, of certain of her +demands. I am convinced that, when the passions aroused by the +controversy have had time to cool, the Italians will themselves question +the wisdom of accumulating for themselves future troubles by creating +new lost provinces and a new Irredenta by annexing against their will +thousands of people of an alien race. Viewing the question from the +standpoints of abstract justice, of sound politics, and of common sense, +I do not believe that Fiume should be given either to the Italians or to +the Jugoslavs, but that the interests of both, as well as the prosperity +of the Fumani themselves, should be<span class="pagenum"><a id="page77" name="page77"></a>Pg 77</span> safeguarded by making it a free +city under international control.</p> + +<p>No account of the extraordinary drama—farce would be a better name were +its possibilities not so tragic—which is being staged at Fiume would be +complete without some mention of the romantic figure who is playing the +part of hero or villain, according to whether your sympathies are with +the Italians or the Jugoslavs. There is nothing romantic, mind you, in +Gabriele d'Annunzio's personal appearance. On the contrary, he is one of +the most unimpressive-looking men I have ever seen. He is short of +stature—not over five feet five, I should guess—and even his +beautifully cut clothes, which fit so faultlessly about the waist and +hips as to suggest the use of stays, but partially camouflage the +corpulency of middle age. His head looks like a new-laid egg which has +been highly varnished; his pointed beard is clipped in a fashion which +reminded me of the bronze satyrs in the Naples museum; a monocle, worn +without a cord, conceals his dead eye, which he lost in battle. His walk +is a combination of a mince and a swagger; his move<span class="pagenum"><a id="page78" name="page78"></a>Pg 78</span>ments are those of +an actor who knows that the spotlight is upon him.</p> + +<p>Though d'Annunzio takes high rank among the modern poets, many of his +admirers holding him to be the greatest one alive, he is a far greater +orator. His diction is perfect, his wealth of imagery exhaustless; I +have seen him sway a vast audience as a wheat-field is swayed by the +wind. His life he values not at all; the four rows of ribbons which on +the breast of his uniform make a splotch of color were not won by his +verses. Though well past the half-century mark, he has participated in a +score of aerial combats, occupying the observer's seat in his fighting +Sva and operating the machine-gun. But perhaps the most brilliant of his +military exploits was a bloodless one, when he flew over Vienna and +bombed that city with proclamations, written by himself, pointing out to +the Viennese the futility of further resistance. His popularity among +all classes is amazing; his word is law to the great organization known +as the <i>Combatenti</i>, composed of the 5,000,000 men who fought in the +Italian armies. He is a jingo of the jingoes, his plans for Italian +expansion reaching far<span class="pagenum"><a id="page79" name="page79"></a>Pg 79</span> beyond the annexation of Fiume or even all of +Dalmatia, for he has said again and again that he dreams of that day +when Italy will have extended her rule over all that territory which +once was held by Rome.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 484px;"> +<a id="image08" name="image08"> +<img src="images/08.jpg" width="484" height="313" alt="THE INHABITANTS OF FIUME CHEERING D'ANNUNZIO AND HIS RAIDERS" +title="THE INHABITANTS OF FIUME CHEERING D'ANNUNZIO AND HIS RAIDERS" /></a> +<span class="caption">THE INHABITANTS OF FIUME CHEERING D'ANNUNZIO AND HIS RAIDERS<br /> +"Save only Barcelona, Fiume has the most excitable population of any +place that I know."<br /> +The patron saint of the city is, appropriately enough, St. Vitus</span> +</div> + +<p>He is a very picturesque and interesting figure, is Gabriele +d'Annunzio—very much in earnest, wholly sincere, but fanatical, +egotistical, intolerant of the rights or opinions of others, a +visionary, and perhaps a little mad. I imagine that he would rather have +his name linked with that of that other soldier-poet, who "flamed away +at Missolonghi" nearly a century ago, than with any other character in +history save Garibaldi. D'Annunzio, like Byron, was an exile from his +native land. Both had a habit of never paying their bills; both had +offended against the social codes of their times; both flamed against +what they believed to be injustice and tyranny; both had a passionate +love for liberty; both possessed a highly developed sense of the +dramatic and delighted in playing romantic rôles. I have heard it said +that d'Annunzio's raid on Fiume would make his name immortal, but I +doubt it. Barely a score of years have passed since the raid on +Johannes<span class="pagenum"><a id="page80" name="page80"></a>Pg 80</span>burg, which was a far more daring and hazardous exploit than +d'Annunzio's Fiume performance, yet to-day how many people remember +Doctor Jameson? It can be said for this middle-aged poet that he has +successfully defied the government of Italy, that he flouted the royal +duke who was sent to parley with him, that he seduced the Italian army +and navy into committing open mutiny—"a breach of that military +discipline," in the words of the Prime Minister, "which is the +foundation of the safety of the state"—and that he has done more to +shake foreign confidence in the stability of the Italian character and +the dependability of the Italian soldier than the Austro-Germans did +when they brought about the disaster at Caporetto.</p> + +<p>I have heard it said that the Nitti government had advance knowledge of +the raid on Fiume and that the reason it took no vigorous measures +against the filibusters was because it secretly approved of their +action. This I do not believe. With President Wilson, the Jugoslavs, +d'Annunzio, and the Italian army and navy arrayed against him, I am +convinced that Mr. Nitti did everything that could be done without +precipitating either a war or a revolu<span class="pagenum"><a id="page81" name="page81"></a>Pg 81</span>tion. Much credit is also due to +the Jugoslavs for their forbearance and restraint under great +provocation. They must have been sorely tempted to give the Poet the +spanking he so richly deserves.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>When the small army of newspaper correspondents who were despatched by +the great New York and London dailies to Khartoum to interview Colonel +Roosevelt upon his emergence from the jungle started up the White Nile +to meet the explorer, they were deterred, both by the shortage of boats +and the question of expense, from chartering individual steamers. But +the public at home was not permitted to know of these petty limitations +and annoyances. On the contrary, people all over the United States, at +their breakfast-tables, read the despatches from the far-off Sudan dated +from "On board the New York <i>Herald's</i> dahabeah <i>Rameses</i>" or "The New +York <i>American's</i> despatch-boat <i>Abbas Hilmi</i>," or "The Chicago +<i>Tribune's</i> special steamer <i>General Gordon</i>," and never dreamed that +the young men in sun-helmets and white linen who were writing those +despatches were comfortably<span class="pagenum"><a id="page82" name="page82"></a>Pg 82</span> seated under the awnings of the same +decrepit stern-wheeler, which they had chartered jointly, but on which, +in order to lend importance and dignity to his despatches, each +correspondent had bestowed a particular name.</p> + +<p>But the destroyer <i>Sirio</i>, which we found awaiting us at Fiume, we did +not have to share with any one. Thanks to the courtesy of the Italian +Ministry of Marine, she was all ours, while we were aboard her, from her +knife-like prow to the screws kicking the water under her stern.</p> + +<p>"I am under orders to place myself entirely at your disposal," explained +her youthful and very stiffly starched skipper, Commander Poggi. "I am +to go where you desire and to stop as long as you please. Those are my +instructions."</p> + +<p>Thus it came about that, shortly after noon on a scorching summer day, +we cast off our moorings and, leaving quarrel-torn Fiume abaft, turned +the nose of the <i>Sirio</i> sou' by sou'-west, down the coast of Dalmatia. +The sun-kissed waters of the Bay of Quarnero looked for all the world +like a vast azure carpet strewn with a million sparkling diamonds; on +our star<span class="pagenum"><a id="page83" name="page83"></a>Pg 83</span>board quarter stretched the green-clad slopes of Istria, with +the white villas of Abbazia peeping coyly out from amid the groves of +pine and laurel; to the eastward the bleak brown peaks of the Dinaric +Alps rose, savage, mysterious, forbidding, against the cloudless summer +sky. Perhaps no stretch of coast in all the world has had so varied and +romantic a history or so many masters as this Dalmatian seaboard. Since +the days of the tattooed barbarians who called themselves Illyrian, this +coast has been ruled in turn by Phœnicians, Celts, Macedonians, Greeks, +Romans, Goths, Byzantines, Croats, Serbs, Bulgars, Huns, Avars, +Saracens, Normans, Magyars, Genoese, Venetians, Tartars, Bosnians, +Turks, French, Russians, Montenegrins, British, Austrians, Italians—and +now by Americans, for from Cape Planca southward to Ragusa, a distance +of something over a hundred miles, the United States is the governing +power and an American admiral holds undisputed sway.</p> + +<p>Leaning over the rail as we fled southward I lost myself in dreams of +far-off days. In my mind I could see, sweeping past in imaginary review, +those other vessels which, all down the<span class="pagenum"><a id="page84" name="page84"></a>Pg 84</span> ages, had skirted these same +shores: the purple sails of Phœnicia, Greek galleys bearing colonists +from Cnidus, Roman triremes with the slaves sweating at the oars, +high-powered, low-waisted Norman caravels with the arms of their +marauding masters painted on their bellowing canvas, stately Venetian +carracks with carved and gilded sterns, swift-sailing Uskok pirate +craft, their decks crowded with swarthy men in skirts and turbans, +Genoese galleons, laden with the products of the hot lands, French and +English frigates with brass cannon peering from their rows of ports, the +grim, gray monsters of the Hapsburg navy. And then I suddenly awoke, +for, coming up from the southward at full speed, their slanting funnels +vomiting great clouds of smoke, were four long, low, lean, incredibly +swift craft, ostrich-plumes of snowy foam curling from their bows, which +sped past us like wolfhounds running with their noses to the ground. As +they passed I could see quite plainly, flaunting from each taffrail, a +flag of stripes and stars.</p> + +<p>The sun was sinking behind Italy when, threading our way amid the maze +of islands and islets which border the Dalmatian shore, we<span class="pagenum"><a id="page85" name="page85"></a>Pg 85</span> saw beyond +our bows, silhouetted against the rose-coral of the evening sky, the +slender campaniles and the crenellated ramparts of Zara. It was so still +and calm and beautiful that I felt as though I were looking at a scene +upon a stage and that the curtain would descend at any moment and +destroy the illusion. The little group of white-clad naval officers who +greeted us upon the quay informed us that the governor-general, Admiral +Count Millo, had placed at our disposal the yacht <i>Zara</i>, formerly the +property of the Austrian Emperor, on which we were to live during our +stay in the Dalmatian capital. It was a peculiarly thoughtful thing to +do, for the summers are hot in Zara, the city's few hotels leave much to +be desired, and a stay at a palace, even that of a provincial governor, +is hedged about by a certain amount of formality and restrictions. But +the <i>Zara</i>, while we were aboard her, was as much ours as the +<i>Mayflower</i> is Mr. Wilson's. We occupied the spacious after-cabins, +exquisitely paneled in white mahogany, which had been used by the +Austrian archduchesses and whose furnishings still bore the imperial +crown, and our breakfasts were served under the white<span class="pagenum"><a id="page86" name="page86"></a>Pg 86</span> awnings stretched +over the after-deck, where, lounging in the grateful shade, we could +look out across the harbor, dotted with the gaudy sails of fishing craft +and bordered by the walls and gardens of the quaint old city, to the +islands of Arbe and Pago, rising, like huge, uncut emeralds, from the +lazy southern sea. At noon we usually lunched with a score or more of +staff-officers in the large, cool dining-room of the officers' mess, and +at night we dined with the governor-general and his family at the +palace, formerly the residence of the Austrian viceroys. Dinner over, we +lounged in cane chairs on the terrace, served by white-clad, +silent-footed servants with coffee, cigarettes, and the maraschino for +which this coast is famous. Those were never-to-be-forgotten evenings, +for the gently heaving breast of the Adriatic glowed with a +phosphorescent luminousness, the air was heavy with the fragrance of +orange, almond, and oleander, the sky was like purple velvet, and the +stars seemed very near.</p> + +<p>Though the population of Dalmatia is overwhelmingly Slav, quite +two-thirds of the 14,000 inhabitants of Zara, its capital, are Italian.<span class="pagenum"><a id="page87" name="page87"></a>Pg 87</span> +Yet, were it not for the occasional Morlachs in their picturesque +costumes seen in the markets or on the wharfs, one would not suspect the +presence of any Slav element in the town, for the dim and tortuous +streets and the spacious squares bear Italian names—Via del Duomo, Riva +Vecchia, Piazza della Colonna; crouching above the city gates is the +snarling Lion of St. Mark, and everywhere one hears the liquid accents +of the Latin. Zara, like Fiume, is an Italian colony set down on a +Slavonian shore, and, like its sister-city to the north, it bears the +indelible and unmistakable imprint of Italian civilization.</p> + +<p>The long, narrow strip of territory sandwiched between the Adriatic and +the Dinaric Alps which comprised the Austrian province of Dalmatia, +though upward of 200 miles in length, has an area scarcely greater than +that of Connecticut and a population smaller than that of Cleveland. +Scarcely more than a tenth of its whole surface is under the plow, the +rest, where it is not altogether sterile, consisting of mountain +pasture. With the exception of scattered groves on the landward slopes, +the country is virtually treeless, the forests for<span class="pagenum"><a id="page88" name="page88"></a>Pg 88</span> which Dalmatia was +once famous having been cut down by the Venetian ship-builders or +wantonly burned by the Uskok pirates, while every attempt at replanting +has been frustrated by the shallowness of the soil, the frequent +droughts, and the multitudes of goats which browse on the young trees. +The dreary expanse of the Bukovica, lying between Zara and the Bosnian +frontier, is, without exception, the most inhospitable region that I +have ever seen. For mile after mile, far as the eye can see, the earth +is overlaid by a thick stratum of jagged limestone, so rough that no +horse could traverse it, so sharp and flinty that a quarter of an hour's +walking across it would cut to pieces the stoutest pair of boots. Under +the rays of the summer sun these rocks become as hot as the top of a +stove; so hot, indeed, that eggs can be cooked upon them, while metal +objects exposed for only a few minutes to the sun will burn the hand. +Scattered here and there over this terrible plateau are tiny farmsteads, +their houses and the walls shutting in the little patches under +cultivation being built from the stones obtained in clearing the soil, a +task requiring incredible patience. No wonder that<span class="pagenum"><a id="page89" name="page89"></a>Pg 89</span> the folk who dwell +in them are characterized by expressions as stony and hopeless as the +soil from which they wring a wretched existence.</p> + +<p>No seaboard of the Mediterranean, save only the coast of Greece, is so +deeply indented as the Dalmatian littoral, with Its unending succession +of rock-bound bays, as frequent as the perforations on a postage-stamp, +and its thick fringe of islands. In calm weather the channels between +these islands and the mainland resemble a chain of landlocked lakes, +like those in the Adirondacks or in southern Ontario, being connected by +narrow straits called <i>canales</i>, brilliantly clear to a depth of several +fathoms. As a rule, the surrounding hills are rugged, bleached yellow or +pale russet, and destitute of verdure, but their monotony is relieved by +the half-ruined castles and monasteries which, perched on the rocky +heights, perpetually reminded me of Howard Pyle's paintings, and by the +medieval charm of Zara, Sebenico, Spalato, Ragusa, Arbe, and Curzola, +whose architecture, though predominantly Venetian, bears characteristic +traces of the many races which have ruled them.</p> + +<p>Just as Italy insisted on pushing her new<span class="pagenum"><a id="page90" name="page90"></a>Pg 90</span> borders up to the Brenner so +that she might have a strategic frontier on the north, so she lays claim +to the larger of the Dalmatian islands—Lissa, Lésina, Curzola, and +certain others—in order to protect her Adriatic shores. A glance at the +map will make her reasons amply plain. There stretches Italy's eastern +coastline, 600 miles of it, from Venice to Otranto, with half a dozen +busy cities and a score of fishing towns, as bare and unprotected as a +bald man's hatless head. Not only is there not a single naval base on +Italy's Adriatic coast south of Venice, but there is no harbor or inlet +that can be transformed into one. Yet across the Adriatic, barely four +hours steam by destroyer away, is a wilderness of islands and deep +harbors where an enemy's fleet could lie safely hidden, from which it +could emerge to attack Italian commerce or to bombard Italy's +unprotected coast towns, and where it could take refuge when the pursuit +became too hot. All down the ages the dwellers along Italy's eastern +seaboard have been terrorized by naval raids from across the Adriatic. +And Italy has determined that they shall be terrorized no more. How +history repeats itself!<span class="pagenum"><a id="page91" name="page91"></a>Pg 91</span> Just as Rome, twenty-two centuries ago, could +not permit the neighboring islands of Sicily to fall into the hands of +Carthage, so Italy cannot permit these coastwise islands, which form her +only protection against attacks from the east, to pass under the control +of the Jugoslavs.</p> + +<p>"But," I said to the Italians with whom I discussed the matter, "why do +you need any such protection now that the world is to have a League of +Nations? Isn't that a sufficient guarantee that the Jugoslavs will never +attack you?"</p> + +<p>"The League of Nations is in theory a splendid thing," was their answer. +"We subscribe to it in principle most heartily. But because there is a +policeman on duty in your street, do you leave wide open your front +door?"</p> + +<p>To be quite candid, I do not think that it is against Jugoslavia, or, +perhaps it would be more accurate to say, against an unaided Jugoslavia, +that Italy is taking precautions. I have already said, I believe, that +thinking Italians look with grave forebodings to the day when a great +Slav confederation shall rise across the Adriatic, but that day, as they +know full well,<span class="pagenum"><a id="page92" name="page92"></a>Pg 92</span> is still far distant. Italy's desperate insistence on +retaining possession of the more important Dalmatian islands is dictated +by a far more immediate danger than that. She is convinced that her next +war will be fought, not with the weak young state of Jugoslavia, but +with Jugoslavia <i>allied with France</i>. Every Italian with whom I +discussed the question—and I might add, without boasting, many highly +placed and well-informed Italians have honored me with their +confidence—firmly believes that France is jealous of Italy's rapidly +increasing power in the Mediterranean, and that she is secretly +intriguing with the Jugoslavs and the Greeks to prevent Italy obtaining +commercial supremacy in the Balkans. I do not say that this is my +opinion, mind you, but I do say that it is the opinion held by most +Italians. I found that the resentment against the French for what the +Italians term France's "betrayal" of Italy at the Peace Conference was +almost universal; everywhere in Italy I found a deep-seated distrust of +France's commercial ambitions and political designs. Though the Italians +admit that the Jugoslavs will not be able to build a navy for many years +to come, they fear, or<span class="pagenum"><a id="page93" name="page93"></a>Pg 93</span> profess to fear, that the day is not +immeasurably far distant when a French battle fleet, co-operating with +the armies of Jugoslavia, will threaten Italy's Adriatic seaboard. And +they are determined that, should such a day ever come, French ships +shall not be afforded the protection, as were the Austrian, of the +Dalmatian islands. Italy, with her great modern battle fleet and her +5,000,000 fighting men, regards the threats of Jugoslavia with something +akin to contempt, but France, turned imperialistic and arrogant by her +victory over the Hun, Italy distrusts and fears, believing that, while +protesting her friendship, she is secretly fomenting opposition to +legitimate Italian aspirations in the Balkan peninsula and in the Middle +Sea. (Again let me remind you that I am giving you not my own, but +Italy's point of view.) You will sneer at this, perhaps, as a phantasm +of the imagination, but I assure you, with all the earnestness and +emphasis at my command, that this distrust of one great Latin nation for +another, whether it is justified or not, forms a deadly menace to the +future peace of the world.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page94" name="page94"></a>Pg 94</span></p> + +<p>Because I did not wish to confine my observations to the coast towns, +which are, after all, essentially Italian, I motored across Dalmatia at +its widest part, from Zara, through Benkovac, Kistonje, and Knin, to the +little hamlet of Kievo, on the Jugoslav frontier. Though the Slav +population of the Dalmatian hinterland is, according to the assertions +of Belgrade, bitterly hostile to Italian rule, I did not detect a single +symptom of animosity toward the Italian officers who were my companions +on the part of the peasants whom we passed. They displayed, on the +contrary, the utmost courtesy and good feeling, the women, looking like +huge and gaudily dressed dolls in their snowy blouses and embroidered +aprons, courtesying, while the tall, fine-looking men gravely touched +the little round caps which are the national head-gear of Dalmatia.</p> + +<p>Kievo is the last town in Dalmatia, being only a few score yards from +the Bosnian frontier. Its little garrison was in command of a young +Italian captain, a tall, slender fellow with the blond beard of a Viking +and the dreamy eyes of a poet. He had been stationed at this lonely +outpost for seven months, he told<span class="pagenum"><a id="page95" name="page95"></a>Pg 95</span> me, and he welcomed us as a man +wrecked on a desert island would welcome a rescue party. In order to +escape from the heat and filth and insects of the village, he had built +in a near-by grove a sort of arbor, with a roof of interlaced branches +to keep off the sun. Its furnishings consisted of a home-made table, an +army cot, two or three decrepit chairs, and a phonograph. I did not need +to inquire where he had obtained the phonograph, for on its cover was +stenciled the familiar red triangle of the Y.M.C.A.—the "<i>Yimka</i>," as +the Italians call it—which operates more than 300 <i>casas</i> for the use +of the Italian army. While our host was preparing a dubious-looking +drink from sweet, bright-colored syrups and lukewarm water, I amused +myself by glancing over the little stack of records on the table. They +were, of course, nearly all Italian, but I came upon three that I knew +well: "<i>Loch Lomond</i>," "<i>Old Folks at Home</i>" and "<i>So Long, Letty</i>." It +was like meeting a party of old friends in a strange land. I tried the +later record, and though it was not very clear, for the captain's supply +of needles had run out and he had been reduced to using ordinary pins, +it was startling<span class="pagenum"><a id="page96" name="page96"></a>Pg 96</span> to hear Charlotte Greenwood's familiar voice caroling +"<i>So long, so long, Letty</i>," there on the borders of Bosnia, with a +picket of curious Jugoslavs, rifles across their knees, seated on the +rocky hillside, barely a stone's throw away. Still, come to think about +it, the war produced many contrasts quite as strange, as, for example, +when the New York Irish, the old 69th, crossed the Rhine with the +regimental band playing "<i>The Sidewalks of New York</i>."</p> + +<p>We touched at Sebenico, which is forty knots down the coast from Zara, +in order to accept an invitation to lunch with Lieutenant-General +Montanari, who commands all the Italian troops in Dalmatia. Now before +we started down the Adriatic we had been warned that, because of +President Wilson's attitude on the Fiume question, the feeling against +Americans ran very high, and that from the Italians we must be prepared +for coldness, if not for actual insults. Well, this luncheon at Sebenico +was an example of the insults we received and the coldness with which we +were treated. Because our destroyer was late, half a hundred busy +officers delayed their midday meal for two hours in order not to sit +down without us. The<span class="pagenum"><a id="page97" name="page97"></a>Pg 97</span> table was decorated with American flags, and other +American flags had been hand-painted on the menus. And, as a final +affront, a destroyer had been sent across the Adriatic Sea to obtain +lobsters because the general had heard that my wife was particularly +fond of them. After that experience don't talk to me about Southern +hospitality. Though the Italians bitterly resent President Wilson's +interference in an affair which they consider peculiarly their own, +their resentment does not extend to the President's countrymen. Their +attitude is aptly illustrated by an incident which took place at the +mess of a famous regiment of Bersaglieri, when the picture of President +Wilson, which had hung on the wall of the mess-hall, opposite that of +the King, was taken down—and an American flag hung in its place.</p> + +<p>The most interesting building in Sebenico is the cathedral, which was +begun when America had yet to be discovered. The chief glory of the +cathedral is its exterior, with its superb carved doors, its countless +leering, grinning gargoyles—said to represent the evil spirits expelled +from the church—and a broad frieze, running entirely around the +edifice, composed<span class="pagenum"><a id="page98" name="page98"></a>Pg 98</span> of sculptured likenesses of the architects, artists, +sculptors, masons, and master-builders who participated in its +construction. Put collars, neckties, and derby hats on some of them and +you would have striking likenesses of certain labor leaders of to-day. +The next time a building of note is erected in this country the +countenances of the bricklayers, hod-carriers, and walking delegates +might be immortalized in some such fashion. I offer the suggestion to +the labor-unions for what it is worth.</p> + +<p>Throughout all the years of Austrian domination the citizens of Sebenico +remained loyal to their Italian traditions, as is proved by the +medallions ornamenting the façade of the cathedral, each of which bears +the image of a saint. One of these sculptured saints, it was pointed out +to me, has the unmistakable features of Victor Emanuel I, another those +of Garibaldi. Thus did the Italian workmen of their day cunningly +express their defiance of Austria's tyranny by ornamenting one of her +most splendid cathedrals with the heads of Italian heroes. Imagine +carving the heads of Elihu Root and Charles E. Hughes on the façade of +Tammany Hall!</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page99" name="page99"></a>Pg 99</span></p> + +<p>Next to the cathedral, the most interesting building in Sebenico is the +insect-powder factory. It is a large factory and does a thriving +business, the need for its product being Balkan-wide. If, for upward of +five months, you had fought nightly engagements with the <i>cimex +lectularius</i>, you would understand how vital is an ample supply of +powder. Believe me or not, as you please, but in many parts of Dalmatia +and Albania we were compelled to defend our beds against nocturnal +raiding-parties by raising veritable ramparts of insect-powder, very +much as in Flanders we threw up earthworks against the assaults of the +Hun, while in Monastir the only known way of obtaining sleep is to set +the legs of one's bed in basins filled with kerosene.</p> + +<p>Four hours steaming south from Sebenico brought us to Spalato, the +largest city of Dalmatia and one of the most picturesquely situated +towns in the Levant. It owes its name to the great palace (<i>palatium</i>) +of Diocletian, within the precincts of which a great part of the old +town is built and around which have sprung up its more modern suburbs. +Cosily ensconced between the stately marble columns which formed the +palace's façade are fruit,<span class="pagenum"><a id="page100" name="page100"></a>Pg 100</span> tobacco, barber, shoe, and tailor shops, +whose proprietors drive a roaring trade with the sailors from the +international armada assembled in the harbor. A great hall, which had +probably originally been one of the vestibules of the palace, was +occupied by the Knights of Columbus, the place being in charge of a +khaki-clad priest, Father Mullane, of Johnstown, Pa., who twice daily +dispensed true American hospitality, in the form of hot doughnuts and +mugs of steaming coffee, to the blue-jackets from the American ships. As +there was no coal to be had in the town, he made the doughnuts with the +aid of a plumber's blowpipe. In the course of our conversation Father +Mullane mentioned that he was living with the Serbian bishop—at least I +think he was a bishop-of Spalato.</p> + +<p>"I suppose he speaks English or French," I remarked.</p> + +<p>"He does not," was the answer.</p> + +<p>"Then you must have picked up some Serb or Italian," I hazarded.</p> + +<p>"Niver a wurrd of thim vulgar tongues do I know," said he.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page101" name="page101"></a>Pg 101</span></p> + +<p>"Then how do you and the bishop get along?"</p> + +<p>"Shure," said Father Mullane, in the rich brogue which is, I imagine, +something of an affectation, "an' what is the use of bein' educated for +the church if we were not able to converse with ease an' fluency in +iligant an' refined Latin?"</p> + +<p>When we were leaving Spalato, Father Mullane presented us with a <i>Bon +Voyage</i> package which contained cigarettes, a box of milk chocolate, and +a five-pound tin of gum-drops. The cigarettes we smoked, the chocolate +we ate, but the gum-drops we used for tips right across the Balkans. In +lands whose people have not known the taste of sugar for five years we +found that a handful of gum-drops would accomplish more than money. A +few men with Father Mullane's resource, tact, and sense of humor would +do more than all the diplomats under the roof of the Hotel Crillon to +settle international differences and make the nations understand each +other.</p> + +<p>I had been warned by archæological friends, before I went to Dalmatia, +that the ruins of Salona, which once was the capital of Roman<span class="pagenum"><a id="page102" name="page102"></a>Pg 102</span> Dalmatia +and the site of the summer palace of Diocletian, would probably +disappoint me. They date from the period of Roman decadence, so my +learned friends explained, and, though following Roman traditions, +frequently show traces of negligence, a fact which is accounted for by +the haste with which the ailing and hypochondriac Emperor sought to +build himself a retreat from the world. Still, the little excursion—for +Salona is only five miles from Spalato—provided much that was worth the +seeing: a partially excavated amphitheater, a long row of stone +sarcophagi lying in a trench, one or two fine gates, and some +beautifully preserved mosaics. I must confess, however, that I was more +interested in the modern aspects of this region than in its glorious +past, for, standing upon the massive walls of the Roman city, I looked +down upon a panorama of power such as Diocletian had never pictured in +his wildest dreams, for, moored in a long and impressive row, their +stern-lines made fast to the <i>Molo</i>, was a line of war-ships flying the +flags of England, France, Italy, and the United States. On the right of +the line, as befitted the fact that its commander was the senior naval +officer and<span class="pagenum"><a id="page103" name="page103"></a>Pg 103</span> in charge of all this portion of the coast, was Admiral +Andrews's flag-ship, the <i>Olympia</i>, but little changed, at least to the +casual glance, since that day, more than twoscore years ago, when she +blazed her way into Manila Bay and won for us a colonial empire. On her +bridge, outlined in brass tacks, I was shown Admiral Dewey's footprints, +just as he stood at the beginning of the battle when he gave the order +"You may fire when you are ready, Gridley."</p> + +<p>Of the 18,000 inhabitants of Spalato, less than a tenth are Italian, the +general character of the town and the sympathies of its inhabitants +being strongly pro-Slav. In fact, its streets were filled with Jugoslav +soldiers, many of them still wearing the uniforms of the Austrian +regiments in which they had served but with Serbian <i>képis</i>, while +others looked strangely familiar in khaki uniforms furnished them by the +United States. It being warm weather, most of the men wore their coats +unbuttoned, thereby displaying a considerable expanse of hairy chest or +violently colored underwear and producing a somewhat negligée effect. +Because of the presence in the town of the Jugoslav soldiery, the crews +of the Italian war-ships were<span class="pagenum"><a id="page104" name="page104"></a>Pg 104</span> not permitted to go ashore with the +sailors of the other nations, as Admiral Andrews feared that their +presence might provoke unpleasant incidents. Hence their "shore leave" +had, for nearly six months, been confined to the narrow concrete <i>Molo</i>, +where they were permitted to stroll in the evenings and where the +Italian girls of the town came to see them. For a Jugoslav girl to have +been seen in company with an Italian sailor would have meant her social +ostracism, if nothing worse.</p> + +<p>Though Italy will unquestionably insist on the cession of certain of the +Dalmatian islands, in order, as I have already pointed out, to assure +herself a defensible eastern frontier, and though she will ask for Zara +and possibly for Sebenico on the ground of their preponderantly Italian +character, I believe that she is prepared to abandon her original claims +to Dalmatia, which is, when all is said and done, almost purely +Slavonian, Jugoslavia thus obtaining nearly 550 miles of coast. Now I +will be quite frank and say that when I went to Dalmatia I was strongly +opposed to the extension of Italian rule over that region. And I still +believe that it would be a political mistake. But, after see<span class="pagenum"><a id="page105" name="page105"></a>Pg 105</span>ing the +country from end to end and talking with the Italian officials who have +been temporarily charged with its administration, I have become +convinced that they have the best interests of the people genuinely at +heart and that the Dalmatians might do worse, so far as justice and +progress are concerned, than to intrust their future to the guidance of +such men.</p> + +<p>It had been our original intention to steam straight south from Spalato +to the Bocche di Cattaro and Montenegro, but, being foot-loose and free +and having plenty of coal in the <i>Sirio's</i> bunkers, we decided to make a +detour in order to visit the Curzolane Islands. In case you cannot +recall its precise situation, I might remind you that the Curzolane +Archipelago, consisting of several good-sized islands—Brazza, Lésina, +Lissa, Mélida, and Curzola—and a great number of smaller ones, lies off +the Dalmatian coast, almost opposite Ragusa. From Spalato we laid our +course due south, past Solta, famed for its honey produced from rosemary +and the cistus-rose; skirted the wooded shores of Brazza, the largest +island of the group, rounded Capo Pellegrino and entered the lovely +harbor of Lésina. We did not anchor but,<span class="pagenum"><a id="page106" name="page106"></a>Pg 106</span> slowing to half-speed, made +the circuit of the little port, running close enough to the shore to +obtain pictures of the famous Loggia built by Sanmicheli, the Fondazo, +the ancient Venetian arsenal, and the crumbling Spanish fort, perched +high on a crag above the town. Then south by west again, past Lissa, the +western-most island of the group, where an Italian fleet under Persano +was defeated and destroyed by an Austrian squadron under Tegetthof in +1866. A marble lion in the local cemetery commemorated the victory and +marked the resting-places of the Austrian dead, but when the Italians +took possession of the island after the Armistice they changed the +inscription on the monument so that it now commemorates their final +victory over Austria. It was not, I think, a very sportsmanlike +proceeding.</p> + +<p>Leaving Lissa to starboard, we steamed through the Canale di +Sabbioncello, with exquisite panoramas unrolling on either hand, and +dropped anchor off the quay of Curzola, where the governor of the +islands, Admiral Piazza, awaited us with his staff. In spite of the +bleakness of the surrounding mountains, Curzola is one of the most +exquisitely beautiful<span class="pagenum"><a id="page107" name="page107"></a>Pg 107</span> little towns that I have ever seen. The next time +you are in the Adriatic you should not fail to go there. Time and the +hand of man—for the people are a color-loving race—have given many +tints, soft and bright, to its roofs, towers, and ramparts. It is a town +of dim, narrow, winding streets, of steep flights of worn stone steps, +of moss-covered archways, and of some of the most splendid specimens of +the domestic architecture of the Middle Ages that exist outside of the +Street of the Crusaders in Rhodes. The sole modern touches are the +costumes of the islanders, and they are sufficiently picturesque not to +spoil the picture. How the place has escaped the motion-picture people I +fail to understand. (As a matter of fact, it hasn't, for I took with me +an operator and a camera—the first the islanders had ever seen.) +Besides the Cathedral of San Marco, with its splendid doors, its +exquisitely carved choir-stalls black with age and use, its choir +balustrade and pulpit of translucent alabaster, and its dim old +altar-piece by Tintoretto, the town boasts the Loggia or council +chambers, the palace of the Venetian governors, the noble mansion of the +Arnieri, and, brooding over all, a towering<span class="pagenum"><a id="page108" name="page108"></a>Pg 108</span> campanile, five centuries +old. The Lion of St. Mark, which appears on several of the public +buildings, holds beneath its paw a closed instead of an open +book—symbolizing, so I was told, the islanders' dissatisfaction with +certain laws of the Venetians.</p> + +<p>But the phase of my visit which I enjoyed the most was when Admiral +Piazza took us across the bay, on a Detroit-built submarine-chaser, to a +Franciscan monastery dating from the fifteenth century. We were met by +the abbot at the water-stairs, and, after being shown the beautiful +Venetian Gothic cloisters, with alabaster columns whose carving was +almost lacelike in its delicate tracery, we were led along a wooded path +beside the sea, over a carpet of pine-needles, to a cloistered +rose-garden, in which stood, amid a bower of blossoms, a blue and white +statue of the Virgin. The fragrance of the flowers in the little +enclosure was like the incense in a church, above our heads the great +pines formed a canopy of green, and the music was furnished by the birds +and the murmuring sea. Here we seemed a world away from the waiting +armies and the great gray battleships, from the quarrels of<span class="pagenum"><a id="page109" name="page109"></a>Pg 109</span> Latin and +Slav. It was the first real peace that I had known after five years of +war, and I should have liked to remain there longer. But Montenegro, +Albania, Macedonia, all the unhappy, war-torn lands of the Near East lay +before me, and I turned reluctantly away. But my thoughts keep harking +back to the little town beside the turquoise bay, to the restfulness of +its old, old buildings, to the perfume of its flowers, and the +whispering voice of its turquoise sea. So some day, when the world is +really at peace and there are no more wars to write about, I think that +I shall go back to where</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Far, far from here,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The Adriatic breaks in a warm bay<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Among the green Illyrian hills."<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page110" name="page110"></a>Pg 110</span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER III</h2> + +<h3>THE CEMETERY OF FOUR EMPIRES</h3> + + +<p>We stood on the forward deck of the <i>Sirio</i> as she slipped southward, +through the placid waters of the Adriatic, at twenty knots an hour. Less +than a league away the Balkan mountains, savage, mysterious, forbidding, +rose in a rocky rampart against the eastern sky.</p> + +<p>"Did it ever occur to you," remarked the Italian officer who stood +beside me, a noted historian in his own land, "that four great empires +have died as a result of their lust for domination over the wretched +lands which lie beyond those mountains? Austria coveted Serbia—and the +empire of the Hapsburgs is in fragments now. Russia, seeing her +influence in the peninsula imperiled, hastened to the support of her +fellow Slavs—but Russia has gone down in red ruin, and the Romanoffs +are dead.<span class="pagenum"><a id="page111" name="page111"></a>Pg 111</span> Germany, seeking a gateway to the warm water, and a highway +to the East, seized on the excuse thus offered to launch her waiting +armies—and the empire reared by the Hohenzollerns is bankrupt and +broken. Turkey fought to retain her hold on such European territory as +still remained under the crescent banner. To-day a postmortem is about +to be held on the Turkish Empire and the House of Osman. Think of it! +Four great empires, four ancient dynasties, lie buried over there in the +Balkans. It is something more than a range of mountains at which we are +looking; it is the wall of a cemetery."</p> + +<p>Rada di Antivari is a U-shaped bay, the color of a turquoise, from whose +shores the Montenegrin mountains rise in tiers, like the seats of an +arena. We put in there unexpectedly because a <i>bora</i>, sweeping suddenly +down from the northwest, had lashed the Adriatic into an ugly mood and +our destroyer, whose decks were almost as near the water as those of a +submarine running awash, was not a craft that one would choose for +comfort in such weather. Nor was our feeling of security increased by +the knowledge that we were skirting the edges of one of<span class="pagenum"><a id="page112" name="page112"></a>Pg 112</span> the largest +mine-fields in the Adriatic. But the <i>Sirio</i> had scarcely poked her +sharp nose around the end of the breakwater which provides the excuse +for dignifying the exposed roadstead of Antivari (with the accent on the +second syllable, so that it rhymes with "discovery") by the name of +harbor before I saw what we had stumbled upon some form of trouble. +There were three other Italian destroyers in the harbor but, instead of +being moored snugly alongside the quay, they were strung out in a +semblance of battle formation, so that their deck-guns, from which the +canvas muzzle-covers had been removed, could sweep the rocky heights +above and around them. A string of signal-flags broke out from our +masthead and was answered in like fashion by the flag-ship of the +flotilla, after which formal exchange of greetings our wireless began to +crackle and splutter in an animated explanation of our unexpected +appearance. Our hawsers had scarcely been made fast before a launch left +the flag-ship and came plowing toward us, a knot of white-uniformed +officers in the stern. From the blue rug with the Italian arms, which, +as I could see through my glasses, was draped over<span class="pagenum"><a id="page113" name="page113"></a>Pg 113</span> the stern-sheets, I +deduced that the commander of the flotilla was paying us a visit.</p> + +<p>"You have come at rather an unfortunate moment," he said after the +introductions were over. "Last night we were fired on by Jugoslavs on +the mountainside over there," indicating the heights across the harbor. +"In fact, the firing has just ceased. There must have been a thousand of +them or more, judging from the flashes. But I hope that madame will not +be alarmed, for she is really quite safe. They are firing at long range, +and the only danger is from a stray bullet. Still, it is most +embarrassing. On madame's account I am sorry."</p> + +<p>His manner was that of a host apologizing to a guest because the +children of the family have measles and at the same time attempting to +convince the guest that measles are hardly ever contagious. I relieved +his quite obvious embarrassment by assuring him that Mrs. Powell much +preferred taking chances with snipers' bullets to the discomfort of a +destroyer in an ugly sea; and that, having journeyed six thousand miles +for the express purpose of seeing what was happening in the Balkans, we<span class="pagenum"><a id="page114" name="page114"></a>Pg 114</span> +would be disappointed if nothing happened at all.</p> + +<p>When I left Paris for the Adriatic I carried with me the impression, as +the result of conversations with members of the various peace +delegations, that the people of Montenegro were almost unanimously in +favor of annexation to Serbia, thereby becoming a part of the new +Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes. But before I had spent +twenty-four hours in Montenegro itself I discovered that on the subject +of the political future of their little country the Montenegrins are +very far from being of the same mind. And, being a simple, primitive +folk, and strong believers in the superiority of the bullet to the +ballot, instead of sitting down and arguing the matter, they take cover +behind a convenient rock and, when their political opponents pass by, +take pot-shots at them.</p> + +<p>My preconceived opinions about political conditions in Montenegro were +largely based on the knowledge that shortly after the signing of the +Armistice a Montenegrin National Assembly, so called, had met at +Podgoritza, and, after declaring itself in favor of the deposition<span class="pagenum"><a id="page115" name="page115"></a>Pg 115</span> of +King Nicholas and the Petrovitch dynasty, which has ruled in Montenegro +since William of Orange sat on the throne of England, voted for the +union of Montenegro with the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes. +Just how representative of the real sentiments of the nation was this +assembly I do not know, but that the sentiment in favor of such a +surrender of Montenegrin independence is far from being overwhelming +would seem to be proved by the fact that the Serbs, in order to hold the +territory thus given to them, have found it necessary to install a +Serbian military governor in Cetinje, to replace by Serbs all the +Montenegrin prefects, to raise a special gendarmerie recruited from men +who are known to be friendly to Serbia and officered by Serbs, and to +occupy this sister-state, which, it is alleged, requested union with +Serbia of its own free will, with two battalions of Serbian infantry. If +Montenegrin sentiment for the union is as overwhelming as Belgrade +claims, then it seems to me that the Serbs are acting in a rather +high-handed fashion.</p> + +<p>I talked with a good many people while I was in Montenegro, and I was +especially care<span class="pagenum"><a id="page116" name="page116"></a>Pg 116</span>ful not to meet them through the medium of either Serbs +or Italians. From these conversations I learned that the Montenegrins +are divided into three factions. The first of these, and the smallest, +desires the return of the King. It represents the old conservative +element and is composed of the men who have fought under him in many +wars. The second faction, which is the noisiest and at present holds the +reins of power, advocates the annexation of Montenegro to Serbia and the +deposition of King Nicholas in favor of the Serbian Prince-Regent +Alexander. The third party, which, though it has no means of making its +desires known, is, I am inclined to believe, the largest, and which +numbers among its supporters the most level-headed and far-seeing men in +the country, while frankly distrustful of Serbian ambitions and +unwilling to submit to Serbian dictatorship, possesses sufficient vision +to recognize the political and commercial advantages which would accrue +to Montenegro were she to become an equal partner in a confederation of +those Jugoslav countries which claim the same racial origin. Most +thoughtful Montenegrins have always been in favor of a<span class="pagenum"><a id="page117" name="page117"></a>Pg 117</span> union of all the +southern Slavs, along the general lines, perhaps, of the Germanic +Confederation, but this must not be interpreted as implying that they +are in favor of a union merely of Montenegro with Serbia, which would +mean the absorption of the smaller country by the larger one. They are +determined that, if such a confederation is brought about, Serbia shall +not occupy the dictatorial position which Prussia did in Germany, and +that the Karageorgevitches shall not play a rôle analogous to that of +the Hohenzollerns. Montenegro, remember, threw off the Turkish yoke a +century and three-quarters before Serbia was able to achieve her +liberty, and the patriotic among her people feel that this hard-won, +long-held independence should not lightly be thrown away.</p> + +<p>It is not generally known, perhaps, that, when Austria declared war on +Serbia in August, 1914, an offensive and defensive alliance already +existed between Serbia, Greece, and Montenegro. We know how highly +Greece valued her signature to that treaty. Montenegro, with an area +two-thirds that of New Jersey, and a population less than that of +Milwaukee, could<span class="pagenum"><a id="page118" name="page118"></a>Pg 118</span> easily have used her weakness as an excuse for +standing aside, like Greece. Very likely Austria would not have molested +her and the little country would have been spared the horrors of a third +war within two years. But King Nicholas's conception of what constituted +loyalty and honor was different from Constantine's. Instead of accepting +the extensive territorial compensations offered by the Austrian envoy if +Montenegro would remain neutral, King Nicholas wired to the Serbian +Premier, M. Pachitch: "<i>Serbia may rely on the brotherly and +unconditional support of Montenegro in this moment, on which depends the +fate of the Serbian nation, as well as on any other occasion</i>," and took +the field at the head of 40,000 troops—all the men able to bear arms in +the little kingdom.</p> + +<p>It has been repeatedly asserted by his enemies that King Nicholas sold +out to the Austrians and that, therefore, he deserves neither sympathy +nor consideration. As to this I have no <i>direct</i> knowledge. How could I? +But, after talking with nearly all of the leading actors in the +Montenegrin drama, it is my personal belief that the King, though guilty +of<span class="pagenum"><a id="page119" name="page119"></a>Pg 119</span> many indiscretions and errors of policy, did not betray his people. +I am not ignorant of the King's shortcomings in other respects. But in +this case I believe that he has been grossly maligned. If he did sell +out he drove an extremely poor bargain, for he is living in exile, in +extremely straitened circumstances, his only luxury a car which the +French Government loans him. It is difficult to believe that, had he +been a traitor to the Allied cause, the British, French, and Italian +governments would continue to recognize him, to pay him subventions, and +to treat him as a ruling sovereign. Certain American diplomats have told +me that they were convinced that the King had a secret understanding +with Austria, though they admitted quite frankly that their convictions +were based on suspicions which they could not prove. To offset this, a +very exalted personage, whose name for obvious reasons I cannot mention, +but whose integrity and whose sources of information are beyond +question, has given me his word that, to his personal knowledge, +Nicholas had neither a treaty nor a secret understanding with the enemy.</p> + +<p>"The propaganda against him had been so<span class="pagenum"><a id="page120" name="page120"></a>Pg 120</span> insidious and successful, +however," my informant concluded, "that even his own soldiers were +convinced that he had sold out to Austria and when the King attempted to +rally them as they were falling back from the positions on Mount +Lovtchen they jeered in his face, shouting that he had betrayed them. +Yet I, who was on the spot and who am familiar with all the facts, give +you my personal assurance that he had not."</p> + +<p>Nor did the King give up his sword to the Austrian commander at Grahovo, +as was reported in the European press. When, with three-quarters of his +country overrun by the Austrians, his chief of staff, Colonel Pierre +Pechitch of the Serbian Army, reported "<i>Henceforth all resistance and +all fighting against the enemy is impossible. There is no chance of the +situation improving</i>," King Nicholas, in the words of Baron Sonnino, +then Italian Foreign Minister, "preferred to withdraw into exile rather +than sign a separate peace."</p> + +<p>I may be wrong in my conclusions, of course; the cabinet ministers and +the ambassadors and the generals in whose honor and truthfulness I +believe may have deliberately deceived me,<span class="pagenum"><a id="page121" name="page121"></a>Pg 121</span> but, after a most +painstaking and conscientious investigation, I am convinced that we have +been misinformed and blinded by a propaganda against King Nicholas and +his people which has rarely been equaled in audacity of untruth and +dexterity of misrepresentation. To employ the methods used by certain +Balkan politicians in their attempted elimination of Montenegro as an +independent nation even Tammany Hall would be ashamed.</p> + +<p>When, upon the occupation of Montenegro by the Austrians, the King fled +to France and established his government at Neuilly, near Paris—just as +the fugitive Serbian Government was established at Corfu and the Belgian +at Le Havre—England, France, and Italy entered into an agreement to pay +him a subvention, for the maintenance of himself and his government, +until such time as the status of Montenegro was definitely settled by +the Peace Conference. England ceased paying her share of this subvention +early in the spring of 1919. When, a few weeks later, it was announced +that King Nicholas was preparing to go to Italy to visit his daughter, +Queen Elena, the French Minister to the court of Montenegro bluntly +in<span class="pagenum"><a id="page122" name="page122"></a>Pg 122</span>formed him that the French Government regarded his proposed visit to +Italy as the first step toward his return to Montenegro, and that, +should he cross the French frontier, France would immediately break off +diplomatic relations with Montenegro and cease paying her share of the +subvention. This would seem to bear out the assertion, which I heard +everywhere in the Balkans, that France is bending every effort toward +building up a strong Jugoslavia in order to offset Italy's territorial +and commercial ambitions in the peninsula. The French indignantly +repudiate the suggestion that they are coercing the Montenegrin King.</p> + +<p>"How absurd!" exclaimed the officials with whom I talked. "We holding +King Nicholas a prisoner? The idea is preposterous. So far as France is +concerned, he can return to Montenegro whenever he chooses."</p> + +<p>Still, their protestations were not entirely convincing. Their attitude +reminded me of the millionaire whose daughter, it was rumored, had +eloped with the family chauffeur.</p> + +<p>"Sure, she can marry him if she wants to," he told the reporters. "I +have no objection. She is free, white, and twenty-one. But if she<span class="pagenum"><a id="page123" name="page123"></a>Pg 123</span> does +marry him I'll stop her allowance, cut her out of my will, and never +speak to her again."</p> + +<p>Because it has been my privilege to know many sovereigns and because I +have been honored with the confidence of several of them, I have become +to a certain extent immune from the spell which seems to be exercised +upon the commoner by personal contact with the Lord's anointed. Save +when I have had some definite mission to accomplish, I have never had +any overwhelming desire "to grasp the hand that shook the hand of John +L. Sullivan." To me it seems an impertinence to take the time of busy +men merely for the sake of being able to boast about it afterward to +your friends. But because, during my travels in Jugoslavia, I heard King +Nicholas repeatedly denounced by Serbian officials with far more +bitterness than they employed toward their late enemies and oppressors, +the Hapsburgs, I was frankly eager for an opportunity to form my own +opinions about Montenegro's aged ruler. The opportunity came when, upon +my return to Paris, I was informed that the King wished to meet me, he +being desirous, I suppose, of talking with<span class="pagenum"><a id="page124" name="page124"></a>Pg 124</span> one who had come so recently +from his own country.</p> + +<p>At that time the King, with the Queen, Prince Peter, and his two +unmarried daughters, was occupying a modest suite in the Hotel Meurice, +in the rue de Rivoli. He received me in a large, sun-flooded room +overlooking the Tuileries Gardens. The bald, broad-shouldered, rather +bent old man in the blue serge suit, with a tin ear-trumpet in his hand, +who rose from behind a great flat-topped desk to greet me, was a +startling contrast to the tall and vigorous figure, in the picturesque +dress of a Montenegrin chieftain, whom I had seen in Cetinje before the +war. I looked at him with interest, for he has been on the throne longer +than any living sovereign, he is the father-in-law of two Kings, and is +connected by marriage with half the royal houses of Europe, and he is +the last of that long line of patriarch-rulers who, leading their armies +in person, have for more than two centuries maintained the independence +of the Black Mountain and its people.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 355px;"> +<a id="image09" name="image09"> +<img src="images/09.jpg" width="355" height="546" alt="HIS MAJESTY NICHOLAS I. KING OF MONTENEGRO" +title="HIS MAJESTY NICHOLAS I. KING OF MONTENEGRO" /></a> +<span class="caption">HIS MAJESTY NICHOLAS I. KING OF MONTENEGRO<br /> +He has been on the throne longer than any living sovereign, he is the +father-in-law of two kings, and is connected by marriage with half the +royal houses of Europe</span> +</div> + +<p>King Nicholas, as is generally known, has been remarkably successful in +marrying off his daughters, two of them having married Kings,<span class="pagenum"><a id="page125" name="page125"></a>Pg 125</span> two +others grand dukes, while a fifth became the wife of a Battenberg +prince. Remembering this, I was sorely tempted to ask the King as to the +truth of a story which I had heard in Cetinje years before. An English +visitor to the Montenegrin capital had been invited to lunch at the +palace. During the meal the King asked his guest his impressions of +Montenegro.</p> + +<p>"Its scenery is magnificent," was the answer. "Its women are as +beautiful and its men as handsome as any I have ever seen. Their +costumes are marvelously picturesque. But the country appears to have no +exports, your Majesty."</p> + +<p>"Ah, my friend," replied the King, his eyes twinkling, "you forget my +daughters."</p> + +<p>Another story, which illustrates the King's quick wit, was told me by +his Majesty himself. When, some years before the Great War, Emperor +Francis Joseph, on a yachting cruise down the Adriatic, dropped anchor +in the Bocche di Cattaro, the Montenegrin mountaineers celebrated the +imperial visit by lighting bonfires on their mountain peaks, a mile +above the harbor.</p> + +<p>"I see that you dwell in the clouds," remarked Francis Joseph to +Nicholas, as they<span class="pagenum"><a id="page126" name="page126"></a>Pg 126</span> stood on the deck of the yacht after dinner watching +the pin-points of flame twinkling high above them.</p> + +<p>"Where else can I live?" responded the Montenegrin ruler. "Austria holds +the sea; Turkey holds the land; the sky is all that is left for +Montenegro."</p> + +<p>One of the things which the King told me during our conversation will, I +think, interest Americans. He said that when President Wilson arrived in +Paris he sent him an autograph letter, congratulating him on the great +part he had played in bringing peace to the world and requesting a +personal interview.</p> + +<p>"But he never granted me the interview," said the King sadly. "In fact, +he never acknowledged my letter."</p> + +<p>I attempted to bridge over the embarrassing pause by suggesting that +perhaps the letter had never been received, but he waved aside the +suggestion as unworthy of consideration. I gathered from what he said +that royal letters do not miscarry.</p> + +<p>"I realize that I am an old man and that my country is a very small and +unimportant one," he continued, "while your President is the ruler<span class="pagenum"><a id="page127" name="page127"></a>Pg 127</span> of a +great country and a very busy man. Still, we in Montenegro had heard so +much of America's chivalrous attitude toward small, weak nations that I +was unduly disappointed, perhaps, when my letter was ignored. I felt +that my age, and the fact that I have occupied the throne of Montenegro +for sixty years, entitled me to the consideration of a reply."</p> + +<p>But we have strayed far from the road which we were traveling. Let us +get back to the people of the mountains; I like them better than the +politicians. Antivari, which nestles in a hollow of the hills, three or +four miles inland from the port of the same name, is one of the most +fascinating little towns in all the Balkans. Its narrow, winding, +cobble-paved streets, shaded by canopies of grapevines and bordered by +rows of squat, red-tiled houses, their plastered walls tinted pale blue, +bright pink or yellow, and the amazingly picturesque costumes of its +inhabitants—slender, stately Montenegrin women in long coats of +turquoise-colored broad-cloth piped with crimson, Bosnians in skin-tight +breeches covered with arabesques of braid and jackets heavy with +embroidery, Albanians wearing the starched and pleated skirts of linen<span class="pagenum"><a id="page128" name="page128"></a>Pg 128</span> +known as <i>fustanellas</i> and <i>comitadjis</i> with cartridge-filled bandoliers +slung across their chests and their sashes bristling with assorted +weapons, priests of the Orthodox Church with uncut hair and beards, +wearing hats that look like inverted stovepipes, hook-nosed, +white-bearded, patriarchal-looking Turks in flowing robes and snowy +turbans, fierce-faced, keen-eyed mountain herdsmen in fur caps and coats +of sheepskin—all these combined to make me feel that I had intruded +upon the stage of a theater during a musical comedy performance, and +that I must find the exit and escape before I was discovered by the +stage-manager. If David Belasco ever visits Antivari he will probably +try to buy the place bodily and transport it to East Forty-fourth Street +and write a play around it.</p> + +<p>There were two gentlemen in Antivari whose actions gave me unalloyed +delight. One of them, so I was told, was the head of the local +anti-Serbian faction; the other, a human arsenal with weapons sprouting +from his person like leaves from an artichoke, was the chief of a +notorious band of <i>comitadjis</i>, as the Balkan guerrillas are called. +They walked up and down<span class="pagenum"><a id="page129" name="page129"></a>Pg 129</span> the main street of Antivari, arms over each +other's shoulders, heads close together, lost in conversation, but +glancing quickly over their shoulders every now and then to see if they +were in danger of being overheard, exactly like the plotters in a +motion-picture play. From the earnestness of their conversation, the +obvious awe in which they were held by the townspeople, and the +suspicious looks cast in their direction by the Serbian gendarmes, I +gathered that in the near future things were going to happen in that +region. Approaching them, I haltingly explained, in the few words of +Serbian at my command, that I was an American and that I wished to +photograph them. Upon comprehending my request they debated the question +for some moments, then shook their heads decisively. It was evident +that, in view of what they had in mind, they considered it imprudent to +have their pictures floating around as a possible means of +identification. But while they were discussing the matter I took the +liberty, without their knowledge, of photographing them anyway. It was +as well, perhaps, that they did not see me do it, for the <i>comitadji</i> +chieftain had a long knife, two<span class="pagenum"><a id="page130" name="page130"></a>Pg 130</span> revolvers, and four hand-grenades in +his belt and a rifle slung over his shoulder.</p> + +<p>From Antivari to Valona by sea is about as far as from New York to +Albany by the Hudson, so that, leaving the Montenegrin port in the early +morning, we had no difficulty in reaching the Albanian one before +sunset. Before the war Valona—which, by the way, appears as Avlona on +most American-made maps—was an insignificant fishing village, but upon +Italy's occupation of Albania it became a military base of great +importance. Whenever we had touched on our journey down the coast we had +been warned against going to Valona because of the danger of contracting +fever. The town stands on the edge of a marsh bordering the shore and, +as no serious attempt has been made to drain the marsh or to clean up +the town itself, about sixty per cent of the troops stationed there are +constantly suffering from a peculiarly virulent form of malaria, similar +to the Chagres fever of the Isthmus. The danger of contracting it was +apparently considered very real, for, before we had been an hour in the +quarters assigned to us, officers began to arrive with safeguards of one +sort or another. One brought<span class="pagenum"><a id="page131" name="page131"></a>Pg 131</span> screens for all the windows; another +provided mosquito-bars for the beds; a third presented us with +disinfectant cubes, which we were to burn in our rooms several times +each day; a fourth made us a gift of quinine pills, two of which we were +to take hourly; still another of our hosts appeared with a dozen bottles +of <i>acqua minerale</i> and warned us not to drink the local water, and, +finally, to ensure us against molestation by prowling natives, a couple +of sentries were posted beneath our windows.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 308px;"> +<a id="image10" name="image10"> +<img src="images/10.jpg" width="308" height="517" alt="TWO CONSPIRATORS OF ANTIVARI" +title="TWO CONSPIRATORS OF ANTIVARI" /></a> +<span class="caption">TWO CONSPIRATORS OF ANTIVARI<br /> +They stood lost in conversation, heads close together, exactly like the +plotters in a motion picture play</span> +</div> + +<p>"Valona isn't a particularly healthy place to live in, I gather?" I +remarked, by way of making conversation, to the officer who was our host +at dinner that evening. His face was as yellow as old parchment and he +was shaking with fever.</p> + +<p>"Well," he reluctantly admitted, "you must be careful not to be bitten +by a mosquito or you will get malaria. And don't drink the water or you +will contract typhoid. And keep away from the native quarter, for there +is always more or less smallpox in the bazaars. And don't go wandering +around the town after nightfall, for there's always a chance of some +fanatic putting a knife between your shoulders.<span class="pagenum"><a id="page132" name="page132"></a>Pg 132</span> Otherwise, there isn't +a healthier place in the world than Valona."</p> + +<p>Across the street from the building in which we were quartered was a +large mosque, which, judging from the scaffoldings around it, was under +repair. But though it seemed to be a large and important mosque, there +was no work going forward on it. I commented upon this one day to an +officer with whom I was walking.</p> + +<p>"Do you see those storks up there?" he asked, pointing to a pair of +long-legged birds standing beside their nest on the dome of the mosque. +"The stork is the sacred bird of Albania and if it makes its nest on a +building which is in course of construction all work on that building +ceases as long as the stork remains. A barracks we were erecting was +held up for several months because a stork decided to make its nest in +the rafters, whereupon the native workmen threw down their tools and +quit."</p> + +<p>"In my country it is just the opposite," I observed. "There, when the +stork comes, instead of stopping work they usually begin building a +nursery."</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page133" name="page133"></a>Pg 133</span></p> + +<p>I had long wished to cross Albania and Macedonia, from the Adriatic to +the Ægean, by motor, but the nearer we had drawn to Albania the more +unlikely this project had seemed of realization. We were assured that +there were no roads in the interior of the country or that such roads as +existed were quite impassable for anything save ox-carts; that the +country had been devastated by the fighting armies and that it would be +impossible to get food en route; that the mountains we must cross were +frequented by bandits and <i>comitadjis</i> and that we would be exposed to +attack and capture; that, though the Italians might see us across +Albania, the Serbian and Greek frontier guards would not permit us to +enter Macedonia, and, as a final argument against the undertaking, we +were warned that the whole country reeked with fever. But when I told +the Governor-General of Albania, General Piacentini, what I wished to do +every obstacle disappeared as though at the wave of a magician's wand.</p> + +<p>"You will leave Valona early to-morrow morning," he said, after a short +conference with his Chief of Staff. "You will be accompanied by an +officer of my staff who was with the Ser<span class="pagenum"><a id="page134" name="page134"></a>Pg 134</span>bian army on its retreat across +Albania to the sea. The country is well garrisoned and I do not +anticipate the slightest trouble, but, as a measure of precaution, a +detachment of soldiers will follow your car in a motor-truck. You will +spend the first night at Argirocastro, the second at Ljaskoviki, and the +third at Koritza, which is occupied by the French. I will wire our +diplomatic agent there to make arrangements with the Jugoslav +authorities for you to cross the Serbian border to Monastir, where we +still have a few troops engaged in salvage work. South of Monastir you +will be in Greek territory, but I will wire the officer in command of +the Italian forces at Salonika to take steps to facilitate your journey +across Macedonia to the Ægean."</p> + +<p>This journey across one of the most savage and least-known regions in +all Europe was arranged as simply and matter-of-factly as a clerk in a +tourist bureau would plan a motor trip through the White Mountains. With +the exception of one or two alterations in the itinerary made necessary +by tire trouble, the journey was made precisely as General Piacentini +planned it and so complete were the arrange<span class="pagenum"><a id="page135" name="page135"></a>Pg 135</span>ments we found that meals +and sleeping quarters had been prepared for us in tiny mountain hamlets +whose very names we had never so much as heard before.</p> + +<p>Until its occupation by the Italians in 1917 Albania was not only the +least-known region in Europe; it was one of the least-known regions in +the world. Within sight of Italy, it was less known than many portions +of Central Asia or Equatorial Africa. And it is still a savage country; +a land but little changed since the days of Constantine and Diocletian; +a land that for more than twenty centuries has acknowledged no master +and, until the coming of the Italians, had known no law. Prior to the +Italian occupation there was no government in Albania in the sense in +which that word is generally used, there being, in fact, no civil +government now, the tribal organization which takes its place being +comparable to that which existed in Scotland under the Stuart Kings.</p> + +<p>The term Albanian would probably pass unrecognized by the great majority +of the inhabitants, who speak of themselves as <i>Skipétars</i> and of their +country as <i>Sccupnj</i>. They are, most ethnologists agree, probably the +most ancient<span class="pagenum"><a id="page136" name="page136"></a>Pg 136</span> race in Europe, there being every reason to believe that +they are the lineal descendants of those adventurous Aryans who, leaving +the ancestral home on the shores of the Caspian, crossed the Caucasus +and entered Europe in the earliest dawn of history. One of the tribes of +this migrating host, straying into these lonely valleys, settled there +with their flocks and herds, living the same life, speaking the same +tongue, following the same customs as their Aryan ancestors, quite +indifferent to the great changes which were taking place in the world +without their mountain wall. Certain it is that Albania was already an +ancient nation when Greek history began. Unlike the other primitive +populations of the Balkan peninsula, which became in time either +Hellenized, Latinized or Slavonicized, the Albanians have remained +almost unaffected by foreign influences. It strikes me as a strange +thing that the courage and determination with which this remarkable race +has maintained itself in its mountain stronghold all down the ages, and +the grim and unyielding front which it has shown to innumerable +invaders, have evoked so little appreciation and admiration in the +outside world. History contains no<span class="pagenum"><a id="page137" name="page137"></a>Pg 137</span> such epic as that of the Albanian +national hero, George Castriota, better known as Scanderbeg, who, with +his ill-armed mountaineers, overwhelmed twenty-three Ottoman armies, one +after another.<a name="FNanchor_A_1" id="FNanchor_A_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_A_1" class="fnanchor">[A]</a></p> + +<p>Picture, if you please, a country remarkably similar in its physical +characteristics to the Blue Ridge Region of our own South, with the same +warm summers and the same brief, cold winters, peopled by the same +poverty-stricken, illiterate, quarrelsome, suspicious, arms-bearing, +feud-practising race of mountaineers, and you will have the best +domestic parallel of Albania that I can give you. Though during the +summer months extremely hot days are followed by bitterly cold nights, +and though fever is prevalent along the coast and in certain of the +valleys, Albania is, climatically speaking, "a white man's country." Its +mountains are believed to contain iron, coal, gold, lead, and copper, +but the internal condition of the country has made it quite impossible +to investigate its mineral resources, much less to develop them. With +the<span class="pagenum"><a id="page138" name="page138"></a>Pg 138</span> exception of Valona, which has been developed into a tolerably good +harbor, there are no ports worthy of the name, Durazzo, Santi Quaranta, +and San Giovanni de Medua being mere open roadsteads, almost unprotected +from the sea winds. There are no railroads in Albania, and the +indifference of the Turkish Government, the corruption of the local +chiefs, and the blood-feuds in which the people are almost constantly +engaged, have resulted in a total absence of good roads. This condition +has been remedied by the Italians, however, who, in order to facilitate +their military operations, constructed a system of highways very nearly +equal to those they built in the Alps. Though the greater part of the +country is a stranger to the plow, the small areas which are under +cultivation produce excellent olive oil, wine of a tolerable quality, a +strong but moderately good tobacco, and considerable grain; Albania, in +spite of its primitive agricultural methods, furnishing most of the corn +supply of the Dalmatian coast.</p> + +<p>Albania, so far as I am aware, is the only country where you can buy a +wife on the instalment plan, just as you would buy a piano or an +encyclopedia or a phonograph. It is quite true<span class="pagenum"><a id="page139" name="page139"></a>Pg 139</span> that there are plenty of +countries where women can be purchased—in Circassia, for example, and +in China, and in the Solomon Group—but in those places the prospective +bridegroom is compelled to pay down the purchase price in cash, not +being afforded the convenience of opening an account. In Albania, +however, such things are better done, a partial payment on the purchase +price of the girl being paid to her parents when the engagement takes +place, after which she is no longer offered for sale, but is set aside, +like an article on which a deposit has been made, until the final +instalment has been paid, when she is delivered to her future husband.</p> + +<p>Albania is likewise the only country that I know of where every one +concerned becomes indignant if a murderer is sent to prison. The +relatives of the dear departed resent it because they feel that the +judge has cheated them out of their revenge, which they would probably +obtain, were the murderer at large, by putting a knife or a pistol +bullet between his shoulders. The murderer, of course, objects to the +sentence both because he does not like imprisonment and because he +believes that he could escape from<span class="pagenum"><a id="page140" name="page140"></a>Pg 140</span> the relatives of his victim were he +given his freedom. If he or his friends have any money, however, the +affair is usually settled on a financial basis, the feud is called off, +the murderer is pardoned, and every one concerned, save only the dead +man, is as pleased and friendly as though nothing had ever happened to +interrupt their friendly relations. A quaint people, the Albanians.</p> + +<p>In order to develop the resources of the country and to transform its +present poverty into prosperity, Italy has already inaugurated an +extensive scheme of public works, which includes the reclamation of the +marshes, the reforestation of the mountains, the reconstruction of the +highways, the improvement of the ports, and the construction of a +railway straight across Albania, from the coast at Durazzo to Monastir, +in Serbian Macedonia, where it will connect with the line from Belgrade +to Salonika. This railway will follow the route of one of the most +important arteries of the Roman Empire, the Via Egnatia, that mighty +military and commercial highway, a trans-Adriatic continuation of the +Via Appia, which, starting from Dyracchium, the modern Durazzo, crossed +the Cavaia<span class="pagenum"><a id="page141" name="page141"></a>Pg 141</span> plain to the Skumbi, climbed the slopes of the Candavian +range, and traversing Macedonia and Thrace, ended at the Bosphorus, thus +linking the capitals of the western and the eastern empires. We traveled +this age-old highway, down which the four-horse chariots of the Cæsars +had rumbled two thousand years ago, in another sort of chariot, with the +power of twenty times four horses beneath its sloping hood. This will +entitle us in future years to listen with the condescension of pioneers +to the tales of the tourists who make the same trans-Balkan journey in a +comfortable <i>wagon-lit</i>, with hot and cold running water and electric +lights and a dining-car ahead. It is a great thing to have seen a +country in the pioneer stage of its existence.</p> + +<p>In that portion of Southern Albania known as North Epirus we motored for +an entire day through a region dotted with what had been, apparently, +fairly prosperous towns and villages but which are now heaps of +fire-blackened ruins. This wholesale devastation, I was informed to my +astonishment, was the work of the Greeks, who, at about the time the +Germans were horrifying the civilized world by their conduct in<span class="pagenum"><a id="page142" name="page142"></a>Pg 142</span> +Belgium, were doing precisely the same thing, it is said, but on a far +more extensive scale, in Albania. As a result of these atrocities, +perpetrated by a so-called Christian and professedly civilized nation, a +large number of Albanian towns and villages were destroyed by fire or +dynamite. Though I have been unable to obtain any reliable figures, the +consensus of opinion among the Albanians, the French and Italian +officials, and the American missionaries and relief workers with whom I +talked is that between 10,000 and 12,000 men, women, and children were +shot, bayoneted, or burned to death, at least double that number died +from exposure and starvation, and an enormous number—I have heard the +figure placed as high as 200,000—were rendered homeless. The stories +which I heard of the treatment to which the Albanian women were +subjected are so revolting as to be unprintable. We spent a night at +Ljaskoviki (also spelled Gliascovichi, Leskovik and Liascovik), +three-quarters of which had been destroyed. Out of a population which, I +was told, originally numbered about 8,000, only 1,200 remain.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 454px;"> +<a id="image11" name="image11"> +<img src="images/11.jpg" width="454" height="346" alt="THE HEAD MEN OF LJASKOVIKI, ALBANIA, WAITING TO BID MAJOR AND MRS. POWELL FAREWELL" title="THE HEAD MEN OF LJASKOVIKI, ALBANIA, WAITING TO BID MAJOR AND MRS. POWELL FAREWELL" /></a> +<span class="caption">THE HEAD MEN OF LJASKOVIKI, ALBANIA, WAITING TO BID MAJOR AND MRS. POWELL FAREWELL</span> +</div> + +<p>Though the great majority of the victims<span class="pagenum"><a id="page143" name="page143"></a>Pg 143</span> were Mohammedans, the +outrages were not directly due to religious causes but were inspired +mainly by greed for territory. When, upon the erection of Albania into +an independent kingdom in 1913, the Greeks were ordered by the Powers to +withdraw from North Epirus, on which they had been steadily encroaching +and which they had come to look upon as inalienably their own, they are +reported to have begun a systematic series of outrages upon the civil +population of the region for which a fitting parallel can be found only +in the Turkish massacres in Armenia or the horrors of Bolshevik rule in +Russia. In their determination to secure Southern Albania for +themselves, the Greeks apparently adopted the policy followed with such +success in Armenia by the Turks, who asserted cynically that "one cannot +make a state without inhabitants."</p> + +<p>I do not think that the Greeks attempt to deny these atrocities—the +evidence is far too conclusive for that—but even as great a Greek as M. +Venizelos justifies them on the ground that they were provoked by the +Albanians. That such things could happen without arousing horror and +condemnation throughout the civilized<span class="pagenum"><a id="page144" name="page144"></a>Pg 144</span> world is due to the fact that in +the summer of 1914 the attention of the world was focused on events in +France and Belgium. I have no quarrel with the Greeks and nothing is +further from my desire than to engage in what used to be known as +"muck-raking," but I am reporting what I saw and heard in Albania +because I believe that the American people ought to know of it. Taken in +conjunction with the behavior of the Greek troops in Smyrna in the +spring of 1918, it should better enable us to form an opinion as to the +moral fitness of the Greeks to be entrusted with mandates over backward +peoples.</p> + +<p>Though Albania is an Italian protectorate, the Albanians, in spite of +all that Italy is doing toward the development of the country, do not +want Italian protection. This is scarcely to be wondered at, however, in +view of the attitude of another untutored people, the Egyptians, who, +though they owe their amazing prosperity solely to British rule, would +oust the British at the first opportunity which offered. Though the +Italians are distrusted because the Albanians question their +administrative ability and because they fear that they will attempt to +de<span class="pagenum"><a id="page145" name="page145"></a>Pg 145</span>nationalize them, the French are regarded with a hatred which I have +seldom seen equaled. This is due, I imagine, to the belief that the +French are allied with their hereditary enemies, the Greeks and the +Serbs, and to France's iron-handed rule, which was exemplified when +General Sarrail, commanding the army of the Orient, ordered the +execution of the President of the short-lived Albanian Republic which +was established at Koritza. As a matter of fact, the Albanians, though +quite unfitted for independence, are violently opposed to being placed +under the protection of any nation, unless it be the United States or +England, in both of which they place implicit trust. I was astonished to +learn that the few Americans who have penetrated Albania since the +war—missionaries, Red Cross workers, and one or two investigators for +the Peace Conference—have encouraged the natives in the belief that the +United States would probably accept a mandate for Albania. Whether they +did this in order to make themselves popular and thereby facilitate +their missions, or because of an abysmal ignorance of American public +sentiment, I do not know, but the fact remains that they have raised +hopes in<span class="pagenum"><a id="page146" name="page146"></a>Pg 146</span> the breasts of thousands of Albanians which can never be +realized. Everything considered, I think that the Albanians might do +worse than to entrust their political future to the guidance of the +Italians, who, in addition to having brought law, order, justice, and +the beginnings of prosperity to a country which never had so much as a +bowing acquaintance with any one of them before, seem to have the best +interests of the people genuinely at heart.</p> + +<p>Leaving Koritza, a clean, well-kept town of perhaps 10,000 people, which +was occupied when we were there by a battalion of black troops from the +French Sudan and some Moroccans, we went snorting up the Peristeri Range +by an appallingly steep and narrow road, higher, higher, always higher, +until, to paraphrase Kipling, we had</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"One wheel on the Horns o' the Mornin',<br /></span> +<span class="i2">An' one on the edge o' the Pit,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">An' a drop into nothin' beneath us<br /></span> +<span class="i2">As straight as a beggar could spit."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>But at last, when I was beginning to wonder whether our wheels could +find traction if the grade grew much steeper, we topped the sum<span class="pagenum"><a id="page147" name="page147"></a>Pg 147</span>mit of +the pass and looked down on Macedonia. Below us the forested slopes of +the mountains ran down, like the folds of a great green rug lying +rumpled on an oaken floor, to meet the bare brown plains of that +historic land where marched and fought the hosts of Philip of Macedon, +and of Alexander, his son. There are few more splendid panoramas in the +world; there is none over which history has cast so magic a spell, for +this barren, dusty land has been the arena in which the races of eastern +Europe have battled since history began. Within its borders are +represented all the peoples who are disputing the reversion of the +Turkish possessions in Europe. Macedonia might be described, indeed, as +the very quintessence of the near eastern question.</p> + +<p>With brakes a-squeal we slipped down the long, steep gradients to +Florina, where Greek gendarmes, in British sun-helmets and khaki, +lounged at the street-crossings and patronizingly waved us past. Thence +north by the ancient highway which leads to Monastir, the parched and +yellow fields on either side still littered with the débris of +war—broken <i>camions</i> and wagons, shattered cannon, pyra<span class="pagenum"><a id="page148" name="page148"></a>Pg 148</span>mids of +ammunition-cases, vast quantities of barbed wire—and sprinkled with +white crosses, thousands and thousands of them, marking the places where +sleep the youths from Britain, France, Italy, Russia, Serbia, Canada, +India, Australia, Africa, who fell in the Last Crusade.</p> + +<p>Monastir is a filthy, ill-paved, characteristically Turkish town, which, +before its decimation by the war, was credited with having some 60,000 +inhabitants. Of these about one-half were Turks and one-quarter Greeks, +the remaining quarter of the inhabitants being composed of Serbs, Jews, +Albanians, and Bulgars. Those of its buildings which escaped the great +conflagration which destroyed half the town were terribly shattered by +the long series of bombardments, so that to-day the place looks like San +Francisco after the earthquake and Baltimore after the fire. In the +suburbs are immense supplies of war <i>matériel</i> of all sorts, mostly +going to waste. I saw thousands of camions, ambulances, caissons, and +wagons literally falling apart from neglect, and this in a country which +is almost destitute of transport. Though the town was packed with +Serbian troops, most of whom are sleeping and eating in<span class="pagenum"><a id="page149" name="page149"></a>Pg 149</span> the open, no +attempt was being made, so far as I could see, to repair the shell-torn +buildings, to clean the refuse-littered streets, or to afford the +inhabitants even the most nominal police protection. The crack of rifles +and revolvers is as frequent in the streets of Monastir as the bang of +bursting tires on Fifth Avenue. A Serbian sentry, on duty outside the +house in which I was sleeping, suddenly loosed off a clip of cartridges +in the street, for no reason in the world, it seemed, than because he +liked to hear the noise! Dead bodies are found nearly every morning. +Murders are so common that they do not provoke even passing comment. In +the night there comes a sharp bark of an automatic or the shattering +roar of a hand-grenade (which, since the war proved its efficacy, has +become the most recherché weapon for private use in these regions), a +clatter of feet, and a "Hello! Another killing." That is all. Life is +the cheapest thing there is in the Balkans.</p> + +<p>The only really clean place we found in Monastir was the American Red +Cross Hospital, an extremely well-managed and efficient institution, +which was under the direction of a young American woman, Dr. Frances +Flood, who,<span class="pagenum"><a id="page150" name="page150"></a>Pg 150</span> with a single woman companion, Miss Jessup, pluckily +remained at her post throughout the greater part of the war. The +officers who during the war achieved rows of ribbons for having acted as +messenger boys between the War Department and the foreign military +missions in Washington, would feel a trifle embarrassed, I imagine, if +they knew what this little American woman did to win <i>her</i> decorations.</p> + +<p>It is in the neighborhood of one hundred and fifty miles from Monastir +to Salonika across the Macedonian plain and the road is one of the very +worst in Europe. Deep ruts, into which the car sometimes slipped almost +to its hubs, and frequent gullies made driving, save at the most +moderate speed, impossible, while, as many of the bridges were broken, +and without signs to warn the travelers of their condition, we more than +once barely saved ourselves from plunging through the gaping openings to +disaster. The vast traffic of the fighting armies had ground the roads +into yellow dust which rose in clouds as dense as a London fog, while +the waves of heat from the sun-scorched plains beat against our faces +like the blast from an open furnace door. Despite its abominable +con<span class="pagenum"><a id="page151" name="page151"></a>Pg 151</span>dition, the road was alive with traffic: droves of buffalo, black, +ungainly, broad-horned beasts, their elephant-like hides caked with +yellow mud; woolly waves of sheep and goats driven by wild mountain +herdsmen in high fur caps and gaudy sashes; caravans of camels, swinging +superciliously past on padded feet, laden with supplies for the interior +or salvaged war material for the coast; clumsy carts, painted in strange +designs and screaming colors, with great sharpened stakes which looked +as though they were intended for purposes of torture, but whose real +duty is to keep the top-heavy loads in place.</p> + +<p>Though the slopes of the Rhodope and the Pindus are clothed with +splendid forests, it is for the most part a flat and treeless land, +dotted with clusters of filthy hovels made of sun-dried brick and with +patches of discouraged-looking vegetation. As Macedonia (its inhabitants +pronounce it as though the first syllable were <i>mack</i>) was once the +granary of the East, I had expected to see illimitable fields of waving +grain, but such fields as we did see were generally small and poor. +Guarding them against the hovering swarms of blackbirds were many +scare<span class="pagenum"><a id="page152" name="page152"></a>Pg 152</span>crows, rigged out in the uniforms and topped by the helmets of the +men whose bones bleach amid the grain. In Switzerland they make a very +excellent red wine called <i>Schweizerblut</i>, because the grapes from which +it is made are grown on soil reddened by the blood of the Swiss who fell +on the battlefield of Morat. If blood makes fine wine, then the best +wine in all the world should come from these Macedonian plains, for they +have been soaked with blood since ever time began.</p> + +<p>Our halfway town was Vodena, which seemed, after the heat and dust of +the journey, like an oasis in the desert. Scores of streams, issuing +from the steep slopes of the encircling hills, race through the town in +a network of little canals and fling themselves from a cliff, in a +series of superb cascades, into the wooded valley below. Philip of +Macedon was born near Vodena, and there, in accordance with his wishes, +he was buried. You can see the tomb, flanked by ever-burning candles, +though you may not enter it, should you happen to pass that way. He +chose his last resting-place well, did the great soldier, for the +overarching boughs of ancient plane-trees turn the cobbled<span class="pagenum"><a id="page153" name="page153"></a>Pg 153</span> streets of +the little town into leafy naves, the air is heavy with the scent of +orange and oleander, and the place murmurs with the pleasant sound of +plashing water.</p> + +<p>Beyond Vodena the road improved for a time and we fled southward at +greater speed, the telegraph poles leaping at us out of the yellow +dust-haze like the pikes of giant sentinels. At Alexander's Well, an +ancient cistern built from marble blocks and filled with crystal-clear +water, we paused to refill our boiling radiator, and paused again, a few +miles farther on, at the wretched, mud-walled village which, according +to local tradition, is the birthplace of the man who made himself master +of three continents, changed the face of the world, and died at +thirty-three.</p> + +<p>Then south again, south again, across the seemingly illimitable plains, +until, topping a range of bare brown hills, there lay spread before us +the gleaming walls and minarets of that city where Paul preached to the +Thessalonians. To the westward Olympus seemed to verify the assertions +of the ancient Greeks that its summit touched the sky. To the east, +outlined against the Ægean's blue, I could see the penin<span class="pagenum"><a id="page154" name="page154"></a>Pg 154</span>sula of +Chalkis, with its three gaunt capes, Cassandra, Longos, and Athos, +reaching toward Thrace, the Hellespont and Asia Minor, like the claw of +a vulture stretched out to snatch the quarry which the eagles killed.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page155" name="page155"></a>Pg 155</span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER IV</h2> + +<h3>UNDER THE CROSS AND THE CRESCENT</h3> + + +<p>Salonika is superbly situated. To gain it from the seaward side you sail +through a portal formed by the majestic peaks of Athos and Olympus. It +reclines on the bronze-brown Macedonian hills, white-clad, like a young +Greek goddess, with its feet laved by the blue waters of the Ægean. (I +have used this simile elsewhere in the book, but it does not matter.) +The scores of slender minarets which rise above the housetops belie the +crosses on the Greek flags which flaunt everywhere, hinting that the +city, though it has passed under Christian rule, is at heart still +Moslem. Indeed, barely a tenth of the 200,000 inhabitants are of the +ruling race, for Salonika is that rare thing in modern Europe, a city +whose population is by majority Jewish. There were hook-nosed, +dark-skinned<span class="pagenum"><a id="page156" name="page156"></a>Pg 156</span> traders from Judea here, no doubt, as far back as the days +when Salonika was but a way-station on the great highroad which linked +the East with Rome, but it was the Jews expelled from Spain by Ferdinand +and Isabella who transformed the straggling Turkish town into one of the +most prosperous cities of the Levant by making it their home. And to-day +the Jewish women of Salonika, the older ones at least, wear precisely +the same costume that their great-grandmother wore in Spain before the +persecution—a symbol and a reminder of how the Israelites were hunted +by the Christians before they found refuge in a Moslem land.</p> + +<p>There are no less than eight distinct ways of spelling and pronouncing +the city's name. To the Greeks, who are its present owners, it is +Saloniki or Saloneke, according to the method of transliterating the +<i>epsilon</i>; it is known to the Turks, who misruled it for five hundred +years, as Selanik; the British call it Salonica, with the accent on the +second syllable; the French Salonique; the Italians Salonnico, while the +Serbs refer to it as Solun. The best authorities seem to have agreed, +however, on Salonika, with the accent on the "i," which is pro<span class="pagenum"><a id="page157" name="page157"></a>Pg 157</span>nounced +like "e," so that it rhymes with "paprika." But these are all +corruptions and abbreviations, for the city was originally named +Thessalonica, after the sister of Alexander of Macedon, and thus +referred to in the two epistles which St. Paul addressed to the church +he founded there. Owing to the variety of its religious sects, Salonika +has a superfluity of Sabbaths as well as of names, Friday being observed +by the Moslems, Saturday by the Jews, and Sunday by the Christians. +Perhaps it would be putting it more accurately to say that there is no +Sabbath at all, for the inhabitants are so eager to make money that +business is transacted on every day of the seven.</p> + +<p>Besides the great colony of Orthodox Jews in Salonika, there is a sect +of renegades known as Dounmé, or Deunmeh, who number perhaps 20,000 in +all. These had their beginnings in the <i>Annus Mirabilis</i>, when a Jewish +Messiah, Sabatai Sevi of Smyrna, arose in the Levant. He preached a +creed which was a first cousin of those believed in by our own +Anabaptists and Seventh Day Adventists. The name and the fame of him +spread across the Near East like fire in dry grass. Every ghetto in +Turkey had<span class="pagenum"><a id="page158" name="page158"></a>Pg 158</span> accepted him; his ritual was adopted by every synagogue; the +Jews gave themselves over to penance and preparation. For a year honesty +reigned in the Levant. Then the prophet set out for Constantinople to +beard the Sultan in his palace and, so he announced, to lead him in +chains to Zion. That was where Sabatai Sevi made his big mistake. For +the Commander of the Faithful was from Missouri, so far as Sabatai +Sevi's claims to divinity were concerned.</p> + +<p>"Messiahs can perform miracles," the Sultan said. "Let me see you +perform one. My Janissaries shall make a target of you. If you are of +divine origin, as you claim, the arrows will not harm you. And, in any +event, it will be an interesting experiment."</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 550px;"> +<a id="image12" name="image12"> +<img src="images/12.jpg" width="550" height="315" alt="THE ANCIENT WALLS OF SALONIKA" +title="THE ANCIENT WALLS OF SALONIKA" /></a> +<span class="caption">THE ANCIENT WALLS OF SALONIKA<br /> +Before us we saw the yellow walls and crenellated towers of that city +where Paul preached to the Thessalonians</span> +</div> + +<p>Now Sabatai evidently had grave doubts about his self-assumed divinity +being arrow-proof, for he protested vigorously against the proposal to +make a human pin-cushion of him, whereupon the Sultan, his suspicions +now confirmed, gave him his choice between being impaled upon a stake, a +popular Turkish pastime of the period, or of renouncing Judaism and +accepting the faith of Islam. Preferring to be a live coward to an +impaled martyr, he chose<span class="pagenum"><a id="page159" name="page159"></a>Pg 159</span> the latter, yet such was his influence with +the Jews that thousands of his adherents voluntarily embraced the +religion of Mohammed. The Dounmé of Salonika are the descendants of +these renegades. Two centuries of waiting have not dimmed their faith in +the eventual coming of their Messiah. So there they wait, equally +distrusted by Jews and Moslems, though they form the wealthiest portion +of the city's population. But they live apart and so dread any mixing of +their blood with that of the infidel Turk or the unbelieving Jew that, +in order to avoid the risk of an unwelcome proposal, they make a +practise of betrothing their children before they are born. It strikes +me, however, that there must on occasion be a certain amount of +embarrasment connected with these early matches, as, for example, when +the prenatally engaged ones prove to be of the same sex.</p> + +<p>I used to be of the opinion that Tiflis, in the Caucasus, was the most +cosmopolitan city that I had ever seen, but since the war I think that +the greatest variety of races could probably be found in Salonika. Sit +at a marble-topped table on the pavement in front of Floca's café at +the<span class="pagenum"><a id="page160" name="page160"></a>Pg 160</span> tea-hour and you can see representatives of half the races in the +world pass by—British officers in beautifully polished boots and +beautifully cut breeches, astride of beautifully groomed ponies; +Highlanders with their kilts covered by khaki aprons; raw-boned, +red-faced Australians in sun helmets and shorts; swaggering <i>chausseurs +d'Afrique</i> in wonderful uniforms of sky-blue and scarlet which you will +find nowhere else outside a musical comedy; soldiers of the Foreign +Legion with the skirts of their long blue overcoats pinned back and with +mushroom-shaped helmets which are much too large for them; soldierly, +well set-up little Ghurkas in broad-brimmed hats and uniforms of olive +green, reminding one for all the world of fighting cocks; Sikhs in +yellow khaki (did you know, by the way, that <i>khaki</i> is the Hindustani +word for dust?) with their long black beards neatly plaited and rolled +up under their chins; Epirotes wearing the starched and plaited skirts +called <i>fustanellas</i>, each of which requires from twenty to forty yards +of linen; Albanian tribal chiefs in jackets stiff with gold embroidery, +with enough weapons thrust in their gaudy sashes to decorate a +club-room; Cretan gendarmes wear<span class="pagenum"><a id="page161" name="page161"></a>Pg 161</span>ing breeches which are so tight below +the knee and so enormously baggy in the seat that they can, and when +they are in Crete frequently do, use them in place of a basket for +carrying their poultry, eggs or other farm produce to market; coal-black +Senegalese, coffee-colored Moroccans and tan-colored Algerians, all +wearing the broad red cummerbunds and the high red tarbooshes which +distinguish France's African soldiery; Italian <i>bersaglieri</i> with great +bunches of cocks' feathers hiding their steel helmets; Serbs in +ununiform uniforms of every conceivable color, material and pattern, +their only uniform article of equipment being their characteristic +high-crowned <i>képis</i>; Russians in flat caps and belted blouses, their +baggy trousers tucked into boots with ankles like accordions; officers +of Cossack cavalry, their tall and slender figures accentuated by their +long, tight-fitting coats and their high caps of lambskin; Bulgar +prisoners wearing the red-banked caps which they have borrowed from +their German allies and Austrian prisoners in worn and shabby uniforms +of grayish-blue; Greek soldiers bedecked like Christmas trees with +medals, badges, fourragéres and chevrons, in the hope, I suppose, that<span class="pagenum"><a id="page162" name="page162"></a>Pg 162</span> +their gaudiness would make up for their lack of prowess; Orthodox +priests with their long hair (for they never cut their hair or beards) +done up in Psyche knots; Hebrew rabbis wearing caps of velvet shaped +like those worn by bakers; Moslem muftis with their snowy turbans +encircled by green scarves as a sign that they had made the pilgrimage +to the Holy Places; Jewish merchants and money-changers in the same +black caps and greasy gabardines which their ancestors wore in the +Middle Ages; British, French, Italian and American bluejackets with +their caps cocked jauntily and the roll of the sea in their gait; +A.R.A., A.R.C., Y.M.C.A., K. of C. and A.C.R.N.E. workers in fancy +uniforms of every cut and color; Turkish sherbet-sellers with huge brass +urns, hung with tinkling bells to give notice of their approach, slung +upon their backs; ragged Macedonian bootblacks (bootblacking appeared to +be the national industry of Macedonia), and hordes of gipsy beggars, the +filthiest and most importunate I have ever seen. All day long this +motley, colorful crowd surges through the narrow streets, their voices, +speaking in a score of tongues, raising a din like that of Bedlam; the<span class="pagenum"><a id="page163" name="page163"></a>Pg 163</span> +smells of unwashed bodies, human perspiration, strong tobacco, rum, +hashish, whiskey, arrack, goat's cheese, garlic, cheap perfumery and +sweat-soaked leather combining in a stench which rises to high Heaven.</p> + +<p>On the streets one sees almost as many colored soldiers as white ones: +French native troops from Algeria, Morocco, Madagascar, Senegal and +China; British Indian soldiery from Bengal, the Northwest Provinces and +Nepaul. The Indian troops were superbly drilled and under the most iron +discipline, but the French native troops appeared to be getting out of +hand and were not to be depended upon. To a man they had announced that +they wanted to go home. They had been through four and a half years of +war, they are tired and homesick, and they are more than willing to let +the Balkan peoples settle their own quarrels. They were weary of +fighting in a quarrel of which they knew little and about which they +cared less; they longed for a sight of the wives and the children they +had left behind them in Fez or Touggourt or Timbuktu. Because they had +been kept on duty in Europe, while the French white troops were being +rapidly demobilized<span class="pagenum"><a id="page164" name="page164"></a>Pg 164</span> and returned to their homes, the Africans were +sullen and resentful. This smoldering resentment suddenly burst into +flame, a day or so before we reached Salonika, when a Senegalese +sergeant, whose request to be sent home had been refused, ran amuck, +barricaded himself in a stone outhouse with a plentiful supply of rifles +and ammunition, and succeeded in killing four officers and half-a-dozen +soldiers before his career was ended by a well-aimed hand grenade. A few +days later a British officer was shot and killed in the camp outside the +city by a Ghurka sentinel. This was not due to mutiny, however, but, on +the contrary, to over-strict obedience to orders, the sentry having been +instructed that he was to permit no one to cross his post without +challenging. The officer, who was fresh from England and had had no +experience with the discipline of Indian troops, ignored the order to +halt—and the next day there was a military funeral.</p> + +<p>Salonika is theoretically under Greek rule and there are pompous, +self-important little Greek policemen, perfect replicas of the British +M.P.'s in everything save physique and discipline, on duty at the street +crossings, but in<span class="pagenum"><a id="page165" name="page165"></a>Pg 165</span>stead of regulating the enormous flow of traffic they +seem only to obstruct it. When the congestion becomes so great that it +threatens to hold up the unending stream of motor-lorries which rolls +through the city, day and night, between the great cantonments in the +outskirts and the port, a tall British military policeman suddenly +appears from nowhere, shoulders the Greek gendarme aside, and with a few +curt orders untangles the snarl into which the traffic has gotten itself +and sets it going again.</p> + +<p>Picturesque though Salonika undeniably is, with its splendid mosques, +its beautiful Byzantine churches, its Roman triumphal arches, and the +brooding bulk of Mount Olympus, which overshadows and makes trivial +everything else, yet the strongest impressions one carries away are +filth, corruption and misgovernment. These conditions are due in some +measure, no doubt, to the refusal of the European troops, with whom the +city is filled, to take orders from any save their own officers, but the +underlying reason is to be found in the indifference and gross +incompetence of the Greek authorities. The Greeks answer this by saying +that they have not had time<span class="pagenum"><a id="page166" name="page166"></a>Pg 166</span> to clean the city up and give it a decent +administration because they have owned it only eight years. All of the +European business quarter, including a mile of handsome buildings along +the waterfront, lies in ruins as a result of the great fire of 1917. +Though a system of new streets has been tentatively laid out across this +fire-swept area, no attempt has been made to rebuild the city, hundreds +of shopkeepers carrying on their businesses in shacks and booths erected +amid the blackened and tottering walls. All of the hotels worthy of the +name were destroyed in the fire, the two or three which escaped being +quite uninhabitable, at least for Europeans, because of the armies of +insects with which they are infested. I do not recall hearing any one +say a good word for Salonika. The pleasantest recollection which I +retain of the place is that of the steamer which took us away from +there.</p> + +<p>Before we could leave Salonika for Constantinople our passports had to +be viséd by the representatives of five nations. In fact, travel in the +Balkans since the war is just one damn visé after another. The Italians +stamped them because we had come from Albania, which is<span class="pagenum"><a id="page167" name="page167"></a>Pg 167</span> under Italian +protection. The Serbs put on their imprint because we had stopped for a +few days in Monastir. The Greeks affixed their stamp—and collected +handsomely for doing so—because, theoretically at least, Salonika, +whose dust we were shaking from our feet, belongs to them. The French +insisted on viséing our papers in order to show their authority and +because they needed the ten francs. The British control officer told me +that I really didn't need his visé, but that he would put it on anyway +because it would make the passports look more imposing. Because we were +going to Constantinople and Bucharest, whereas our passports were made +out for "the Balkan States," the American Consul would not visé them at +all, on the ground that neither Turkey nor Roumania is in the Balkans. +About Roumania he was technically correct, but I think most geographers +place European Turkey in the Balkans. As things turned out, however, it +was all labor lost and time thrown away, for we landed in Constantinople +as untroubled by officials and inspectors as though we were stepping +ashore at Twenty-third Street from a Jersey City ferry.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page168" name="page168"></a>Pg 168</span>There were no regular sailings from Salonika for Constantinople, but, +by paying a hundred dollars for a ticket which in pre-war days cost +twenty, we succeeded in obtaining passage on an Italian tramp steamer. +The <i>Padova</i> was just such a cargo tub as one might expect to find +plying between Levantine ports. Though we occupied an officer's cabin, +for which we were charged <i>Mauretania</i> rates, it was very far from being +as luxurious as it sounds, for I slept upon a mattress laid upon three +chairs and the mattress was soiled and inhabited. Still, it was very +diverting, after an itching night, to watch the cockroaches, which were +almost as large as mice, hurrying about their duties on the floor and +ceiling. Huddled under the forward awnings were two-score deck +passengers—Greeks, Turks, Armenians and Roumanians. Sprawled on their +straw-filled mattresses, they loafed the hot and lazy days away in +playing cards, eating the black bread, olives and garlic which they had +brought with them, smoking a peculiarly strong and villainous tobacco, +and torturing native musical instruments of various kinds. At night a +young Turk sang plaintive, quavering laments to the accompaniment of a +sort of gui<span class="pagenum"><a id="page169" name="page169"></a>Pg 169</span>tar, some of the others occasionally joining in the mournful +chorus. I found my chief recreation, when it grew too dark to read, in +watching an Orthodox priest, who was one of the deck-passengers, prepare +for the night by combing and putting up his long and greasy hair. +Another of the deck-passengers was a rather prosperous-looking, +middle-aged Levantine who had been in America making his fortune, he +told me, and was now returning to his wife, who lived in a little +village on the Dardanelles, after an absence of sixteen years. She had +no idea that he was coming, he said, as he had planned to surprise her. +Perhaps he was the one to be surprised. Sixteen years is a long time for +a woman to wait for a man, even in a country as conservative as Turkey.</p> + +<p>The officers of the <i>Padova</i> talked a good deal about the mine-fields +that still guarded the approaches to the Dardanelles and the possibility +that some of the deadly contrivances might have broken loose and drifted +across our course. In order to cheer us up the captain showed us the +charts, on which the mined areas were indicated by diagonal shadings, +little red arrows pointing the way between them along channels<span class="pagenum"><a id="page170" name="page170"></a>Pg 170</span> as +narrow and devious as a forest trail. To add to our sense of security he +told us that he had never been through the Dardanelles before, adding +that he did not intend to pick up a pilot, as he considered their +charges exorbitant. At the base of the great mine-field which lies +across the mouth of the Straits we were hailed by a British patrol boat, +whose choleric commander bellowed instructions at us, interlarded with +much profanity, through a megaphone. The captain of the <i>Padova</i> could +understand a few simple English phrases, if slowly spoken, but the +broadside of Billingsgate only confused and puzzled him, so, despite the +fact that he had no pilot and that darkness was rapidly descending, he +kept serenely on his course. This seemed to enrage the British skipper, +who threw over his wheel and ran directly across our bows, very much as +one polo player tries to ride off another.</p> + +<p>"You —— fool!" he bellowed, fairly dancing about his quarter-deck with +rage. "Why in hell don't you stop when I tell you to? Don't you know +that you're running straight into a mine-field? Drop anchor alongside me +and do it —— quick or I'll take your —— license away<span class="pagenum"><a id="page171" name="page171"></a>Pg 171</span> from you. And +I don't want any of your —— excuses, either. I won't listen to 'em."</p> + +<p>"What he say?" the captain asked me. "I not onderstan' hees Engleesh +ver' good."</p> + +<p>"No, you wouldn't," I told him. "He's speaking a sort of patois, you +see. He wants to know if you will have the great kindness to drop anchor +alongside him until morning, for it is forbidden to pass through the +mine-fields in the dark, and he hopes that you will have a very pleasant +night."</p> + +<p>Five minutes later our anchor had rumbled down off Sed-ul-Bahr, under +the shadow of Cape Helles, the tip of that rock, sun-scorched, +blood-soaked peninsula which was the scene of that most heroic of +military failures—the Gallipoli campaign. Above us, on the bare brown +hillside, was what looked, in the rapidly deepening twilight, like a +patch of driven snow, but upon examining it through my glasses I saw +that it was a field enclosed by a rude wall and planted thickly with +small white wooden crosses, standing row on row. Then I remembered. It +was at the foot of these steep and steel-swept bluffs that the Anzacs +made their immortal land<span class="pagenum"><a id="page172" name="page172"></a>Pg 172</span>ing; it is here, in earth soaked with their own +blood, that they lie sleeping. The crowded dugouts in which they dwelt +have already fallen in; the trenches which they dug and which they held +to the death have crumbled into furrows; their bones lie among the rocks +and bushes at the foot of that dark and ominous hill on whose slopes +they made their supreme sacrifice. Leaning on the rail of the deserted +bridge in the darkness and the silence it seemed as though I could see +their ghosts standing amid the crosses on the hillside staring longingly +across the world toward that sun-baked Karroo of Australia and to the +blue New Zealand mountains which they called "Home." It was a night +never to be forgotten, for the glassy surface of the Ægean glowed with +phosphorescence, the sky was like a hanging of purple velvet, and the +peak of our foremast seemed almost to graze the stars. Across the +Hellespont, to the southward, the sky was illumined by a ruddy glow—a +village burning, so a sailor told me, on the site of ancient Troy. And +then there came back to me those lines from Agamemnon which I had +learned as a boy:</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page173" name="page173"></a>Pg 173</span></p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><i>"Beside the ruins of Troy they lie buried, those men so beautiful; +there they have their burial-place, hidden in an enemy's land!"</i></p></div> + +<p>We got under way at daybreak and, picking our way as cautiously as a +small boy who is trying to get out of the house at night without +awakening his family, we crept warily through the vast mine-field which +was laid across the entrance to the Dardanelles, past Sed-ul-Bahr, whose +sandy beach is littered with the rusting skeletons of both Allied and +Turkish warships and transports; past Kalid Bahr, where the high bluffs +are dotted with the ruins of Turkish forts destroyed by the shell-fire +of the British dreadnaughts on the other side of the peninsula and with +the remains of other forts which were destroyed in the Crusaders' times; +past Chanak, where the steep hill-slopes behind the town were white with +British tents, and so into the safe waters of the Marmora Sea. Though I +was perfectly familiar with the topography of the Gallipoli Peninsula, +as well as with the possibilities of modern naval guns, I was astonished +at the evidences, which we saw along the shore for miles, of the +extraordi<span class="pagenum"><a id="page174" name="page174"></a>Pg 174</span>nary accuracy of the fire of the British fleet. Virtually all +the forts defending the Dardanelles were bombarded by indirect fire, +remember, the whole width of the peninsula separating them from the +fleet. To get a mental picture of the situation you must imagine +warships lying in the East River firing over Manhattan Island in an +attempt to reduce fortifications on the Hudson. Men who were in the +Gallipoli forts during the bombardment told me that, though they were +prevented by the rocky ridge which forms the spine of the peninsula from +seeing the British warships, and though, for the same reason, the +gunners on the ships could not see the forts, the great steel +calling-cards of the British Empire came falling out of nowhere as +regularly and with as deadly precision as though they were being fired +at point-blank range.</p> + +<p>The successful defense of the Dardanelles, one of the most brilliantly +conducted defensive operations of the entire war, was primarily due to +the courage and stubborn endurance of Turkey's Anatolian soldiery, +ignorant, stolid, hardy, fearless peasants, who were taken straight from +their farms in Asia Minor, put into wretchedly made, ill-fitting +uniforms, hastily trained by<span class="pagenum"><a id="page175" name="page175"></a>Pg 175</span> German drillmasters, set down in the +trenches on the Gallipoli ridge and told to hold them. No one who is +familiar with the conditions under which these Turkish soldiers fought, +who knows how wretched were the conditions under which they lived, who +has seen those waterless, sun-seared ridges which they held against the +might of Britain's navy and the best troops which the Allies could bring +against them, can withhold from them his admiration. Their valor was +deserving of a better cause.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page176" name="page176"></a>Pg 176</span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER V</h2> + +<h3>WILL THE SICK MAN OF EUROPE RECOVER?</h3> + + +<p>Each time that I have approached Constantinople from the Marmora Sea and +have watched that glorious and fascinating panorama—Seraglio Point, St. +Sophia, Stamboul, the Golden Horn, the Galata Bridge, the heights of +Pera, Dolmabagtche, Yildiz—slowly unfold, revealing new beauties, new +mysteries, with each revolution of the steamer's screw, I have declared +that in all the world there is no city so lovely as this capital of the +Caliphs. Yet, beautiful though Constantinople is, it combines the moral +squalor of Southern Europe with the physical squalor of the Orient to a +greater degree than any city in the Levant. Though it has assumed the +outward appearance of a well-organized and fairly well administered +municipality since its occupation by the Allies, one has<span class="pagenum"><a id="page177" name="page177"></a>Pg 177</span> but to scratch +this thin veneer to discover that the filth and vice and corruption and +misgovernment which characterized it under Ottoman rule still remain. +Barring a few municipal improvements which were made in the European +quarter of Pera and in the fashionable residential districts between +Dolmabagtche and Yildiz, the Turkish capital has scarcely a bowing +acquaintance with modern sanitation, the windows of some of the finest +residences in Stamboul looking out on open sewers down which refuse of +every description floats slowly to the sea or takes lodgment on the +banks, these masses of decaying matter attracting great swarms of +pestilence-breeding flies. The streets are thronged with women whose +virtue is as easy as an old shoe, attracted by the presence of the +armies as vultures are attracted by the smell of carrion. Saloons, +brothels, dives and gambling hells run wide open and virtually +unrestricted, and as a consequence venereal diseases abound, though the +British military authorities, in order to protect their own men, have +put the more notorious resorts "out of bounds" and, in order to provide +more wholesome recreations for the troops, have opened amusement parks +called<span class="pagenum"><a id="page178" name="page178"></a>Pg 178</span> "military gardens." In spite of the British, French, Italian and +Turkish military police who are on duty in the streets, stabbing +affrays, shootings and robberies are so common that they provoke but +little comment. Petty thievery is universal. Hats, coats, canes, +umbrellas disappear from beside one's chair in hotels and restaurants. +The Pera Palace Hotel has notices posted in its corridors warning the +guests that it is no longer safe to place their shoes outside their +doors to be polished. The streets, always wretchedly paved, have been +ground to pieces by the unending procession of motor-lorries, and, as +they are never by any chance repaired, the first rain transforms them +into a series of hog-wallows. The most populous districts of Pera, of +Galata, and of Stamboul are now disfigured by great areas of +fire-blackened ruins—reminders of the several terrible conflagrations +from which the Turkish capital has suffered in recent years. "Should the +United States decide to accept the mandate for Constantinople," a +resident remarked to me, "these burned districts would give her an +opportunity to start rebuilding the city on modern sanitary lines" and, +he might have added, at American expense.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page179" name="page179"></a>Pg 179</span></p> + +<p>The prices of necessities are fantastic and of luxuries fabulous. The +cost of everything has advanced from 200 to 1,200 per cent. The price of +a meal is no longer reckoned in piastres but in Turkish pounds, though +this is not as startling as it sounds, for the Turkish <i>lira</i> has +dropped to about a quarter of its normal value. Quite a modest dinner +for two at such places as Tokatlian's, the Pera Palace Hotel, or the +Pera Gardens, costs the equivalent of from fifteen to twenty dollars. +Everything else is in proportion. From the "Little Club" in Pera to the +Galata Bridge is about a seven minutes' drive by carriage. In the old +days the standard tariff for the trip was twenty-five cents. Now the +cabmen refuse to turn a wheel for less than two dollars.</p> + +<p>Speaking of money, the chief occupation of the traveler in the Balkans +is exchanging the currency of one country for that of another: lira into +dinars, dinars into drachmæ, drachmæ into piastres, piastres into leva, +leva into lei, lei into roubles (though no one ever exchanges his money +for roubles if he can possibly help it), roubles into kronen, and kronen +into lire again. The idea is to leave each country with<span class="pagenum"><a id="page180" name="page180"></a>Pg 180</span> as little as +possible of that country's currency in your possession. It is like +playing that card game in which you are penalized for every heart you +have left in your hand.</p> + +<p>"But how is the Sick Man?" I hear you ask.</p> + +<p>He is doing very nicely, thank you. In fact, he appears to be steadily +improving. There was a time, shortly after the Armistice, when it seemed +certain that he would have to submit to an operation, which he probably +would not have survived, but the surgeons disagreed as to the method of +operating and now it looks as though he would get well in spite of them. +He has a chill every time they hold a consultation, of course, but he +will probably escape the operation altogether, though he may have to +take some extremely unpleasant medicine and be kept on a diet for +several years to come. He has remarkable recuperative powers, you know, +and his friends expect to see him up and about before long.</p> + +<p>That may sound flippant, as it is, but it sums up in a single paragraph +the extraordinary political situation which exists in Turkey to-day. +Little more than a year ago Turkey surrendered in defeat, her resources +exhausted, her armies<span class="pagenum"><a id="page181" name="page181"></a>Pg 181</span> destroyed or scattered. If anything in the world +seemed certain at that time it was that the redhanded nation, whose very +name has for centuries been a synonym for cruelty and oppression, would +disappear from the map of Europe, if not from the map of the world, at +the behest of an outraged civilization. The Turkish Government committed +the most outrageous crime of the entire war when it organized the +systematic extermination of the Armenians. Its former Minister of War, +Enver Pasha, has been quoted as cynically remarking, "If there are no +more Armenians there can be no Armenian question." A people capable of +such barbarity ought no longer be permitted to sully Europe with their +presence: they ought to be driven back into those savage Anatolian +regions whence they came and kept there, just as those suffering from a +less objectionable form of leprosy are confined on Molokai. But the +fervor of a year ago for expelling the Turks from Europe is rapidly +dying down. In the spring of 1919 Turkey could have been partitioned by +the Allies with comparatively little friction. No one expected it more +than Turkey herself. When<span class="pagenum"><a id="page182" name="page182"></a>Pg 182</span>ever she heard a step on the floor, a knock at +the door, she keyed herself for the ordeal of the anesthetic and the +operating table. But the ancient jealousies and rivalries of the Entente +nations, which had been forgotten during the war, returned with peace +and now it looks as though, as a result of these nations' distrust and +suspicion of each other, the Turks would win back by diplomacy what they +lost in battle. How History repeats itself! The Turks have often been +unlucky in war and then had a return of luck at the peace table. It was +so after the Russo-Turkish War, when the Congress of Berlin tore up the +Treaty of San Stefano. It was so to a lesser extent after the Balkan +wars, when the interference of the European Concert enabled Turkey to +recover Adrianople and a portion of the Thracian territory which she had +lost to Bulgaria. And now it looks as though she were once again to +escape the punishment she so richly merits. If she does, then History +will chronicle few more shameful miscarriages of justice.</p> + +<p>If the people of the United States could know for a surety of the +avarice, the selfishness, the cynicism which have marked every<span class="pagenum"><a id="page183" name="page183"></a>Pg 183</span> step of +the negotiations relative to the settlement of the Near Eastern +Question, if they were aware of the chicanery and the deceit and the low +cunning practised by the European diplomatists, I am convinced that +there would be an irresistible demand that we withdraw instantly from +participation in the affairs of Southeastern Europe and of Western Asia. +Why not look the facts in the face? Why not admit that these affairs +are, after all, none of our concern, and that, by every one save the +Turks and the Armenians, our attempted dictation is resented. In the +language of the frontier, we have butted into a game in which we are not +wanted. It is no game for up-lifters or amateurs. England, France, Italy +and Greece are not in this game to bring order out of chaos but to +establish "spheres of influence." They are not thinking about +self-determination and the rights of little peoples and making the world +safe for Democracy; they are thinking in terms of future commercial and +territorial advantage. They are playing for the richest stakes in the +history of the world: for the control of the Bosphorus and the Bagdad +Railway—for whoever controls them controls the trade routes<span class="pagenum"><a id="page184" name="page184"></a>Pg 184</span> to India, +Persia, and the vast, untouched regions of Transcaspia; the commercial +domination of Western Asia, and the overlordship of that city which +stands at the crossroads of the Eastern World and its political capital +of Islam.</p> + +<p>In order better to appreciate the subtleties of the game which they are +playing, let us glance over the shoulders of the players, and get a +glimpse of their hands. Take England to begin with. Unless I am greatly +mistaken, England is not in favor of a complete dismemberment of Turkey +or the expulsion of the Sultan from Constantinople. This is a complete +<i>volte face</i> from the sentiment in England immediately after the war, +but during the interim she has heard in no uncertain terms from her +100,000,000 Mohammedan subjects in India, who look on the Turkish Sultan +as the head of their religion and who would resent his humiliation as +deeply, and probably much more violently, than the Roman Catholics would +resent the humiliation of the Pope. British rule in India, as those who +are in touch with Oriental affairs know, is none too stable, and the +last thing in the world England wants to do is to<span class="pagenum"><a id="page185" name="page185"></a>Pg 185</span> arouse the hostility +of her Moslem subjects by affronting the head of their faith. England +will unquestionably retain control of Mesopotamia for the sake of the +oil wells at the head of the Persian Gulf, the control which it gives +her of the eastern section of the Bagdad Railway, and because of her +belief that scientific irrigation will once more transform the plains of +Babylonia into one of the greatest wheat-producing regions in the world. +She may, and probably will, keep her oft-repeated promises to the Jews +by erecting Palestine into a Hebrew kingdom under British protection, if +for no other reason than its value as a buffer state to protect Egypt. +She will also, I assume, continue to foster and support the policy of +Pan-Arabism, as expressed In the new Kingdom of the Hedjaz, not alone +for the reason that control of the Arabian peninsula gives her complete +command of the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf as well as a highroad from +Egypt to her new protectorate of Persia, but because she hopes, I +imagine, that her protege, the King of Hedjaz, as Sheriff of Mecca, will +eventually supplant the Sultan as the religious head of Islam. (It is +interesting to note, in passing, that, as a re<span class="pagenum"><a id="page186" name="page186"></a>Pg 186</span>sult of the protectorates +which she has proclaimed over Mesopotamia, Palestine, Arabia and Persia, +England has, as a direct result of the war, obtained control of new +territories in Asia alone having an area greater than that of all the +states east of the Mississippi put together, with a population of some +20,000,000.) Though England would unquestionably welcome the United +States accepting a mandate for Constantinople, which would ensure the +neutrality of the Bosphorus, and for Armenia, which, under American +protection, would form a stabilized buffer state on Mesopotamia's +northern border, I am convinced that, even if the United States refuses +such mandates, the British Government will oppose the serious +humiliation of the Sultan-Khalif, or the complete dismemberment of his +dominions.</p> + +<p>The latest French plan is to establish an independent Turkey from +Adrianople to the Taurus Mountains, lopping off Syria, which will become +a French protectorate, and Mesopotamia and Palestine, which will remain +under British control.</p> + +<p>Constantinople, according to the French view, must remain independent, +though doubtless the<span class="pagenum"><a id="page187" name="page187"></a>Pg 187</span> freedom of the Straits would be assured by some +form of international control. France is not particularly enthusiastic +about the establishment of an independent Armenia, for many French +politicians believe that the interests of the Armenians can be +safeguarded while permitting them to remain under the nominal suzerainty +of Turkey, but she will oppose no active objections to Armenian +independence. But there must be no crusade against the Turkish +Nationalists who are operating in Asia Minor and no pretext given for +Nationalist massacres of Greeks and Armenians. And the Sultan must +retain the Khalifate and his capital in Constantinople, for, according +to the French view, it is far better for the interests of France, who +has nearly 30,000,000 Moslem subjects of her own, to have an independent +head of Islam at Constantinople, where he would be to a certain extent +under French influence, than to have a British-controlled one at Mecca. +The truth of the matter is that France is desperately anxious to protect +her financial interests in Turkey, which are already enormous, and she +knows perfectly well that her commercial and financial ascendency on +the<span class="pagenum"><a id="page188" name="page188"></a>Pg 188</span> Bosphorus will suddenly wane if the Empire should be dismembered. +That is the real reason why she is cuddling up to the Sick Man. Being +perfectly aware that neither England nor Italy would consent to her +becoming the mandatary for Constantinople, she proposes to do the next +best thing and rule Turkey in the future, as in the past, through the +medium of her financial interests. Sophisticated men who have read the +remarkable tributes to Turkey which have been appearing in the French +press, and its palliation of her long list of crimes, have been aware +that something was afoot, but only those who have been on the inside of +recent events realize how enormous are the stakes, and how shrewd and +subtle a game France is playing.</p> + +<p>Strictly speaking, Italy is not one of the claimants to Constantinople. +Not that she does not want it, mind you, but because she knows that +there is about as much chance of her being awarded such a mandate as +there is of her obtaining French Savoy, which she likewise covets. Under +no conceivable conditions would France consent to the Bosphorus passing +under Italian control; according to French views, indeed,<span class="pagenum"><a id="page189" name="page189"></a>Pg 189</span> Italy is +already far too powerful in the Balkans. Recognizing the hopelessness of +attempting to overcome French opposition, Italy has confined her claims +to the great rich region of Cilicia, which roughly corresponds to the +Turkish vilayet of Adana, a rich and fertile region in southern Asia +Minor, with a coast line stretching from Adana to Alexandretta. Cilicia, +I might mention parenthetically, is usually included in the proposed +Armenian state, and Armenians have anticipated that Alexandretta would +be their port on the Mediterranean, but, while the peacemakers at Paris +have been discussing the question, Italy has been pouring her troops +into this region, having already occupied the hinterland as far back as +Konia. Italy's sole claim to this region is that she wants it and that +she is going to take it while the taking is good. There are, it is true, +a few Italians along the coast, there are some Italian banks, and +considerable Italian money has been invested in various local projects, +but the population is overwhelmingly Turkish. But, as the Italians point +out in defending this piece of land-grabbing, Article 22 of the Covenant +of the League of Nations expressly states that the<span class="pagenum"><a id="page190" name="page190"></a>Pg 190</span> wishes of people not +yet civilized need not be considered.</p> + +<p>Let us now consider the claims of Greece as a reversionary of the Sick +Man's estate. Considering their attitude during the early part of the +war (for it is no secret that General Sarrail's operations in Macedonia +were seriously hampered by his fear that Greece might attack him in the +rear) and the paucity of their losses in battle, the Greeks have done +reasonably well in the game of territory grabbing. Do you realize, I +wonder, the full extent of the Hellenic claims? Greece asks for (1) the +southern portion of Albania, known as North Epirus; (2) for the whole of +Bulgarian Thrace, thus completely barring Bulgaria from the Ægean; (3) +for the whole of European Turkey, including the Dardanelles and +Constantinople; (4) for the province of Trebizond, on the southern shore +of the Black Sea, the Greek inhabitants of which attempted to establish +the so-called Pontus Republic; (5) the great seaport of Smyrna, with its +400,000 inhabitants, and a considerable portion of the hinterland, which +she has already occupied; (6) the Dodecannessus Islands, of which the<span class="pagenum"><a id="page191" name="page191"></a>Pg 191</span> +largest is Rhodes, off the western coast of Asia Minor, which the +Italians occupied during the Turco-Italian War and which they have not +evacuated; (7) the cession of Cyprus by England, which has administered +it since 1878. Greece's modest demands might be summed up in the words +of a song which was popular in the United States a dozen years ago and +which might appropriately be adopted by the Greeks as their national +anthem:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"All I want is fifty million dollars,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A champagne fountain flowing at my feet;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">J. Pierpont Morgan waiting at the table,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And Sousa's band a-playing while I eat."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>I will be quite candid in saying that I have small sympathy for Greece's +claims to these territories, not because she is not entitled to them on +the ground of nationality—for there is no denying that, in all of the +regions in question, save only Albania and Thrace, Greeks form a +majority of the Christian inhabitants—but because she is not herself +sufficiently advanced to be entrusted with authority over other races, +particularly over Mohammedans. The atrocities committed by Greek troops +on the Moslems of Albania and of Smyrna, to say<span class="pagenum"><a id="page192" name="page192"></a>Pg 192</span> nothing of the behavior +of the Greek bands in Macedonia during the Balkan wars, should be +sufficient proof of her unfitness to govern an alien race. I have +already spoken in some detail of the reported Greek outrages in Albania. +But this was not an isolated instance of the methods employed in +"Hellenizing" Moslem populations. In the spring of 1919 the Peace +Conference, hypnotized, apparently, by M. Venizelos, who is one of the +ablest diplomats of the day, made the mistake of permitting Greek +forces, unaccompanied by other troops, to land at Smyrna. Almost +immediately there began an indiscriminate slaughter of Turkish officials +and civilians, in retaliation, so the Greeks assert, for the massacre of +Greeks by Turks in the outlying districts. The obvious answer to this is +that, while the Greeks claim that they are a civilized race, they assert +that the Turks are not. The outcry against the Greeks on this occasion +was so great that an inter-allied commission, including American +representatives, was appointed to make a thorough investigation. This +commission unanimously found the Greeks guilty of the unprovoked +massacre of 800 Turkish men, women and children, who were<span class="pagenum"><a id="page193" name="page193"></a>Pg 193</span> shot down in +cold blood while being marched along the Smyrna waterfront, those who +were not killed instantly being thrown by Greek soldiers into the sea. +High handed and outrageous conduct by Greek troops in the towns and +villages back of Smyrna was also proved. I do not require any further +testimony as to the unwisdom of placing Mohammedans under Greek control, +but, if I did, I have the evidence of Mr. Hamlin, the son of the founder +of Roberts College, who was born in the Levant, who speaks both Turkish +and Greek, and who was sent to Smyrna by the Greek government as an +investigator and adviser. He told me that the Greek attitude toward the +Moslems was highly provocative and overbearing and that the Allies were +guilty of criminal negligence when they permitted the Greeks to land at +Smyrna alone.</p> + +<p>Though they know that their dream of restoring Hellenic rule over +Byzantium cannot be realized, the Greeks are bitterly opposed to the +United States receiving a mandate for Constantinople. The extent of +Greek hostility toward the United States is not appreciated in America, +yet I found traces of it everywhere<span class="pagenum"><a id="page194" name="page194"></a>Pg 194</span> in the Levant. A widespread Greek +propaganda has laid the responsibility for Greece's failure to get the +whole of Thrace at the door of the United States. To this accusation has +been added the charge that Americans were foremost in creating sentiment +against the Greek massacres in Smyrna, which, the Greeks contend, was +merely an unfortunate incident and should be overlooked. All sorts of +extraordinary reasons are advanced for America's alleged hostility to +Greek claims, ranging from the charge that our attitude is inspired by +the missionaries (for the Orthodox Church has always opposed the +presence of American missionaries in Greek lands) to commercial +ambition. As one leading Greek paper put it, "Alongside of America's +greed and schemes for commercial expansion since the war, Germany's +imperialism was pure idealism."</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 547px;"> +<a id="image13" name="image13"> +<img src="images/13.jpg" width="547" height="327" alt="YILDIZ KIOSK, THE FAVORITE PALACE OF ABDUL-HAMID AND HIS SUCCESSORS ON THE THRONE OF OSMAN" +title="YILDIZ KIOSK, THE FAVORITE PALACE OF ABDUL-HAMID AND HIS SUCCESSORS ON THE THRONE OF OSMAN" /></a> +<span class="caption">YILDIZ KIOSK, THE FAVORITE PALACE OF ABDUL-HAMID AND HIS SUCCESSORS ON THE THRONE OF OSMAN<br /> +The building in the foreground, known as the Ambassador's Pavilion, is +only a small portion of the great Palace which in Abdul-Hamid's time +housed upward of 10,000 persons</span> +</div> + +<p>And now a few words as to the attitude of Turkey herself, for she has, +after all, a certain interest in the matter. The Turks are perfectly +resigned to accepting either America, England or France as mandatary, +though they would much prefer America, provided that European Turkey, +Anatolia and Armenia are kept to<span class="pagenum"><a id="page195" name="page195"></a>Pg 195</span>gether, for they realize that Syria, +Mesopotamia and Arabia, whose populations are overwhelmingly Arab, are +lost to them forever. What they would most eagerly welcome would be an +American mandate for European Turkey and the whole of Asia Minor, +including Armenia. This would keep out the Greeks, whom they hate, and +the Italians, whom they distrust, and it would keep intact the most +valuable portion of the Empire and the part for which they have the +deepest sentimental attachment. Most Turks believe that, with America as +the mandatary power, the country would not only benefit enormously +through the railways, roads, harbor works, agricultural projects, +sanitary improvements and financial reforms which would be carried out +at American expense, as in the Philippines, but that, should the Turks +behave themselves and demonstrate an ability for self-government, +America would eventually restore their complete independence, as she has +promised to restore that of the Filipinos. But if they find that +Constantinople and Armenia are to be taken away from them, then I +imagine that they would vigorously oppose any mandatary whatsoever. And +they could make a far<span class="pagenum"><a id="page196" name="page196"></a>Pg 196</span> more effective opposition than is generally +believed, for, though Constantinople is admittedly at the mercy of the +Allied fleet in the Bosphorus, the Nationalist are said to have +recruited a force numbering nearly 300,000 men, composed of well-trained +and moderately well equipped veterans of the Gallipoli campaign, which +is concentrated in the almost inaccessible regions of Central Anatolia. +Moreover, Enver Pasha, the former Minister of War and leader of the +Young Turk party, who, it is reported, has made himself King of +Kurdistan, is said to be in command of a considerable force of Turks, +Kurds and Georgians which he has raised for the avowed purpose of ending +the troublesome Armenian question by exterminating what is left of the +Armenians, and by effecting a union of the Turks, the Kurds, the +Mohammedans of the Caucasus, the Persians, the Tartars and the Turkomans +into a vast Turanian Empire, which would stretch from the shores of the +Mediterranean to the borders of China. Though the realization of such a +scheme is exceedingly improbable, it is by no means as far-fetched or +chimerical as it sounds, for Enver is bold, shrewd, highly intelligent<span class="pagenum"><a id="page197" name="page197"></a>Pg 197</span> +and utterly unscrupulous and to weld the various races of his proposed +empire he is utilizing an enormously effective agency—the fanatical +faith of all Moslems in the future of Islam. Neither England nor France +have any desire to stir up this hornet's nest, which would probably +result in grave disorders among their own Moslem subjects and which +would almost certainly precipitate widespread massacres of the +Christians in Asia Minor, for the sake of dismembering Turkey and +ousting the Sultan.</p> + +<p>I have tried to make it clear that there is nothing which the Turks so +urgently desire as for the United States to take a mandate for the whole +of Turkey. Those who are in touch with public opinion in this country +realize, of course, that the people of the United States would never +approve of, and that Congress would never give its assent to such an +adventure, yet there are a considerable number of well-informed, able +and conscientious men—former Ambassador Henry Morgenthau and President +Henry King of Oberlin, for example—who give it their enthusiastic +support. And they are backed up by a host of missionaries, commercial +representatives, concessionaires and<span class="pagenum"><a id="page198" name="page198"></a>Pg 198</span> special commissioners of one sort +and another. When I was in Constantinople the European colony in that +city was watching with interest and amusement the maneuvers of the Turks +to bring the American officials around to accepting this view of the +matter. They "rushed" the rear admiral who was acting as American High +Commissioner and his wife as the members of a college fraternity "rush" +a desirable freshman. And, come to think of it, most of the American +officials who were sent out to investigate and report on conditions in +Turkey are freshmen when it comes to the complexities of Near Eastern +affairs. This does not apply, of course, to such men as Consul-General +Ravndal at Constantinople, Consul-General Horton at Smyrna, Dr. Howard +Bliss, President of the Syrian Protestant College at Beirut, and certain +others, who have lived in the Levant for many years and are intimately +familiar with the intricacies of its politics and the characters of its +peoples. But it does apply to those officials who, after hasty and +personally conducted tours through Asiatic Turkey, or a few months' +residence in the Turkish capital, are accepted as "experts" by the Peace +Con<span class="pagenum"><a id="page199" name="page199"></a>Pg 199</span>ference and by the Government at Washington. When I listen to their +dogmatic opinions on subjects of which most of them were in abysmal +ignorance prior to the Armistice, I am always reminded of a remark once +made to me by Sir Edwin Pears, the celebrated historian and authority on +Turkish affairs. "I don't pretend to understand the Turkish character," +Sir Edwin remarked dryly, "but, you see, I have lived here only forty +years."</p> + +<p>It is an interesting and altruistic scheme, this proposed regeneration +at American expense of a corrupt and decadent empire, but in their +enthusiasm its supporters seem to have overlooked several obvious +objections. In the first place, though both England and France are +perfectly willing to have the United States accept a mandate for +European Turkey, Armenia and even Anatolia, I doubt if England would +welcome with enthusiasm a proposal that she should evacuate Palestine +and Mesopotamia, the conquest of which has cost her so much in blood and +gold, or whether France would consent to renounce her claims to Syria, +of which she has always considered herself the legatee. As for Italy and +Greece, I imagine that it would<span class="pagenum"><a id="page200" name="page200"></a>Pg 200</span> prove as difficult to oust the one from +Adalia and the other from Smyrna as it has been to oust the Poet from +Fiume. Secondly, such a mandate would mean the end of Armenia's dream of +independence, for, though she might be given a certain measure of +autonomy, and though she would, of course, no longer be exposed to +Turkish massacres, she would enjoy about as much real independence under +such an arrangement as the native states of India enjoy under the +British Raj. Lastly, nothing is further from our intention, if I know +the temper of my countrymen, than to assume any responsibility in order +to resurrect the Turk, nor are we interested in preserving the integrity +of Turkey in any guise, shape or form. Instead of perpetuating the +unspeakable rule of the Osmanli, we should assist in ending it forever.</p> + +<p>And now we come to the question of accepting a mandate for Armenia. In +order to get a mental picture of this foundling which we are asked to +rear you must imagine a country about the size of North Dakota, with +Dakota's cold winters and scorching summers, consisting of a dreary, +monotonous, mile-high plateau<span class="pagenum"><a id="page201" name="page201"></a>Pg 201</span> with grass-covered, treeless mountains +and watered by many rivers, whose valleys form wide strips of arable +land. Rising above the general level of this Armenian tableland are +barren and forbidding ranges, broken by many gloomy gorges, which +culminate, on the extreme northeast, in the mighty peak of Ararat, the +traditional resting-place of the Ark. Armenia is completely hemmed in by +alien and potentially hostile races. On the northeast are the wild +tribes of the Caucasus; on the east are the Persians, who, though not +hostile to Armenian aspirations, are of the faith of Islam; along +Armenia's southern border are the Kurds, a race as savage, as cruel and +as relentless as were the Apaches of our own West; on the east is +Anatolia, with its overwhelmingly Ottoman population. Before the war the +Armenians in the six Turkish vilayets—Trebizond, Erzeroum, Van, Bitlis, +Mamuret-el-Aziz and Diarbekir—numbered perhaps 2,000,000, as compared +with about 700,000 Turks. But there is no saying how many Armenians +remain, for during the past five years the Turks have perpetrated a +series of wholesale massacres in order to be able to tell<span class="pagenum"><a id="page202" name="page202"></a>Pg 202</span> the Christian +Powers, as a Turkish official cynically remarked, that "one cannot make +a state without inhabitants."</p> + +<p>As just and accurate an estimate of the Armenian character as any I have +read is that written by Sir Charles William Wilson, perhaps the foremost +authority on the subject, for the Encyclopædia Britannica: "The +Armenians are essentially an Oriental people, possessing, like the Jews, +whom they resemble in their exclusiveness and widespread dispersion, a +remarkable tenacity of race and faculty of adaptation to circumstances. +They are frugal, sober, industrious and intelligent and their sturdiness +of character has enabled them to preserve their nationality and religion +under the sorest trials. They are strongly attached to old manners and +customs but have also a real desire for progress which is full of +promise. On the other hand they are greedy of gain, quarrelsome in small +matters, self-seeking and wanting in stability; and they are gifted with +a tendency to exaggeration and a love of intrigue which has had an +unfortunate effect on their history. They are deeply separated by +religious differences and their mutual jealousies, their<span class="pagenum"><a id="page203" name="page203"></a>Pg 203</span> inordinate +vanity, their versatility and their cosmopolitan character must always +be an obstacle to a realization of the dreams of the nationalists. The +want of courage and selfreliance, the deficiency in truth and honesty +sometimes noticed in connection with them, are doubtless due to long +servitude under an unsympathetic government."</p> + +<p>It seems to me that it is time to subordinate sentiment to common sense +in discussing the question of Armenia. I have known many Armenians and I +have the deepest sympathy for the woes of that tragic race, but if the +Armenians are in danger of extermination their fate is a matter for the +Allies as a whole, or for the League of Nations, if there ever is one, +but not for the United States alone. To administer and police Armenia +would probably require an army corps, or upwards of 50,000 men, and I +doubt if a force of such size could be raised for service in so remote +and inhospitable a region without great difficulty. My personal opinion +is that the Armenians, if given the necessary encouragement and +assistance, are capable of governing themselves. Certainly they could +not govern themselves more wretch<span class="pagenum"><a id="page204" name="page204"></a>Pg 204</span>edly than the Mexicans, yet there has +been no serious proposal that the United States should take a mandate +for Mexico. Everything considered, I am convinced that the highest +interests of Armenia, of America, and of civilization would be best +served by making Armenia an independent state, having much the same +relation to the United States as Cuba. Let us finance the Armenian +Republic by all means, let us lend it officers to organize its +gendarmerie and teachers for its schools, let us send it agricultural +and sanitary and building and financial experts, and let us give the +rest of the world, particularly the Turks, to understand that we will +tolerate no infringement of its sovereignly. Do that, set the Armenians +on their feet, safeguard them politically and financially, and then +leave them to work out their own salvation.</p> + +<p>Though prophesying is a dangerous business, and likely to lead to +embarrassment and chagrin for the prophet, I am willing to hazard a +guess that the future maps of what was once the Ottoman Dominions will +be laid out something after this fashion: Mesopotamia will be tinted +red, because it will be British. Pales<span class="pagenum"><a id="page205" name="page205"></a>Pg 205</span>tine will also be under Britain's +ægis—a little independent Hebrew state, not much larger than Panama. +Under the word "Syria" will appear the inscription "French +Protectorate." The Adalia region will be designated "Italian Sphere of +Influence," while Smyrna and its immediate hinterland will probably be +labeled "Greek Sphere." Across the northeastern corner of Asia Minor +will be spread the words "Republic of Armenia" and beneath, in +parentheses, "Independence guaranteed by the United States." The whole +of Anatolia, save the Greek and Italian fringes just mentioned, will be +occupied and ruled by the Turks, for it is their ancestral home. The +fortifications along the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus will be leveled +and they, with Constantinople, will be under some form of international +control, with equal rights for all nations. But, unless I am very much +mistaken, the Turks will <i>not</i> be driven out of Europe, as has so long +been predicted; the Ottoman Government will not retire to Brusa, in Asia +Minor, but will continue to function in Stamboul, and the Sultan, as the +religious head of Islam, will still dwell in the great white palace atop +of Yildiz hill.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page206" name="page206"></a>Pg 206</span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER VI</h2> + +<h3>WHAT THE PEACE-MAKERS HAVE DONE ON THE DANUBE</h3> + + +<p>When I called upon M. Bratianu, the Prime Minister of Rumania, who was +in Paris as a delegate to the Peace Conference, I opened the +conversation by innocently remarking that I proposed to spend some weeks +in his country during my travels in the Balkans. But I got no further, +for M. Bratianu, whose tremendous shoulders and bristling black beard +make him appear even larger than he is, sprang to his feet and brought +his fist crashing down upon the table.</p> + +<p>"You ought to know better than that, Major Powell," he angrily +exclaimed. "Rumania is not in the Balkans and never has been. We object +to being called a Balkan people."</p> + +<p>I apologized for my slip, of course, and amicable relations were +resumed, but I mention the<span class="pagenum"><a id="page207" name="page207"></a>Pg 207</span> incident as an illustration of how deeply +the Rumanians resent the inclusion of their country in that group of +turbulent kingdoms which compose what some one has aptly called the +Cockpit of Europe. The Rumanians are as sensitive in this respect as are +the haughty and aristocratic Creoles, inordinately proud of their French +or Spanish ancestry, when some ignorant Northerner remarks that he had +always supposed that Creoles were part negro. Not only is Rumania not +one of the Balkan states, geographically speaking, but the Rumanians' +idea of their country's importance has been enormously increased as a +result of its recent territorial acquisitions, which have made it the +sixth largest country in Europe, with an area very nearly equal to that +of Italy and with a population three-fourths that of Spain. You were not +aware, perhaps, that the width of Greater Rumania, from east to west, is +as great as the width of France from the English Channel to the +Mediterranean. One has to break into a run to keep pace with the march +of geography these days.</p> + +<p>Owing to the demoralization prevailing in Thrace and Bulgaria, railway +communications<span class="pagenum"><a id="page208" name="page208"></a>Pg 208</span> between Constantinople and the Rumanian frontier were so +disorganized that we decided to travel by steamer to Constantza, taking +the railway thence to Bucharest. Before the war the Royal Rumanian mail +steamer <i>Carol I</i> was as trim and luxuriously fitted a vessel as one +could have found in Levantine waters. For more than a year, however, she +was in the hands of the Bolsheviks, so that when we boarded her her +sides were red with rust, her cabins had been stripped of everything +which could be carried away, and the straw-filled mattresses, each +covered with a dubious-looking blanket, were as full of unwelcome +occupants as the Black Sea was of floating mines.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 552px;"> +<a id="image14" name="image14"> +<img src="images/14.jpg" width="552" height="329" alt="THE RED BADGE OF MERCY IN THE BALKANS" +title="THE RED BADGE OF MERCY IN THE BALKANS" /></a> +<span class="caption">THE RED BADGE OF MERCY IN THE BALKANS<br /> +American Red Cross women supplying food to a ship-load of starving +Russian refugees at Constantza, Rumania</span> +</div> + +<p>Constantza, the chief port of Rumania, is superbly situated on a +headland overlooking the Black Sea. It has an excellent harbor, bordered +on one side by a number of large grain elevators and on the other by a +row of enormous petroleum tanks—the latter the property of an American +corporation; a mile or so of asphalted streets, several surprisingly +fine public buildings, and, on the beautifully terraced and landscaped +waterfront, an imposing but rather ornate casino and many luxurious +sum<span class="pagenum"><a id="page209" name="page209"></a>Pg 209</span>mer villas, most of which were badly damaged when the city was +bombarded by the Bulgars. Constantza is a favorite seaside resort for +Bucharest society and during the season its <i>plage</i> is thronged with +summer visitors dressed in the height of the Paris fashion. From atop +his marble pedestal in the city's principal square a statue of the Roman +poet Ovid, who lived here in exile for many years, looks quizzically +down upon the light-hearted throng.</p> + +<p>It is in the neighborhood of 150 miles by railway from Constantza to +Bucharest and before the war the Orient Express used to make the journey +in less than four hours. Now it takes between twenty and thirty. We made +a record trip, for our train left Constantza at four o'clock in the +morning and pulled into Bucharest shortly before midnight. It is only +fair to explain, however, that the length of time consumed in the +journey was due to the fact that the bridge across the Danube near +Tchernavoda, which was blown up by the Bulgars, had not been repaired, +thus necessitating the transfer of the passengers and their luggage +across the river on flat-boats, a proceeding which required several +hours and was marked<span class="pagenum"><a id="page210" name="page210"></a>Pg 210</span> by the wildest confusion. So few trains are +running in the Balkans that there are never enough, or nearly enough, +seats to accommodate all the passengers, so that fully as many ride on +the roofs of the coaches as inside. This has the advantage, in the eyes +of the passengers, of making it impracticable for the conductor to +collect the fares, but it also has certain disadvantages. During our +trip from Constantza to Bucharest three roof passengers rolled off and +were killed.</p> + +<p>As a result of the lengthy occupation of the city by the Austro-Germans, +and their systematic removal of machinery and industrial material of +every description, everything is out of order in Bucharest. Water, +electric lights, gas, telephones, elevators, street-cars "<i>ne marche +pas</i>." Though we had a large and beautifully furnished room in the +Palace Hotel we had to climb three flights of stairs to reach it, the +light was furnished by candles, the water for the bathroom was brought +in buckets, and, as the Germans had removed the wires of the +house-telephones, we had to go into the hall and shout when we required +a servant. Yet the almost total lack of conveniences does not<span class="pagenum"><a id="page211" name="page211"></a>Pg 211</span> deter the +hotels from making the most exorbitant charges. Bucharest has always +been an expensive city but to-day the prices are fantastic. At Capsa's, +which is the most fashionable restaurant, it is difficult to get even a +modest lunch for two for less than twelve dollars. But, notwithstanding +the destruction of the nation's chief source of wealth, its oil wells, +by the Rumanians themselves, in order to prevent their use by the enemy, +and the systematic looting of the country by the invaders, there seems +to be no lack of money in Bucharest, for the restaurants are filled to +the doors nightly, there is a constant fusillade of champagne corks, and +in the various gardens, all of which have cabaret performances, the +popular dancers are showered with silver and notes. In fact, a customary +evening in Bucharest is not very far removed, in its gaiety and abandon, +from a New Year's Eve celebration in New York. Not even Paris can offer +a gayer night life than the Rumanian capital, for at the Jockey Club it +is no uncommon thing for 10,000 francs to change hands on the turn of a +card or a whirl of the roulette wheel; out the Chaussée Kisselew, at the +White City, the dance floor is crowded until<span class="pagenum"><a id="page212" name="page212"></a>Pg 212</span> daybreak with slender, +rather effeminate-looking officers in beautiful uniforms of green or +pale blue and superbly gowned and bejewelled women. Indeed, I doubt if +there is any city of its size in the world on whose streets one sees so +many <i>chic</i> and beautiful women, though I might add that their jewels +are generally of a higher quality than their morals. As long as these +bewitching beauties behave themselves they are not molested by the +police, who seem to have an arrangement with the hotel managements +looking toward their control. When Mrs. Powell and I arrived at our +hotel the proprietor asked us for our passports, which, he explained, +must be viséd by the police. The following morning my passport was +returned alone.</p> + +<p>"But where is my wife's passport?" I demanded, for in Southern Europe in +these days it is impossible to travel even short distances without one's +papers.</p> + +<p>"But M'sieu must know that we always retain the lady's passport until he +leaves," said the proprietor, with a knowing smile. "Then, should she +disappear with M'sieu's watch, or his money, or his jewels, she will not +be able to<span class="pagenum"><a id="page213" name="page213"></a>Pg 213</span> leave the city and the police can quickly arrest her. Yes, +it is the custom here. A neat idea, <i>hein</i>?"</p> + +<p>Though I succeeded in obtaining the return of Mrs. Powell's passport I +am not at all certain that I succeeded in entirely convincing the +<i>hôtelier</i> that she really was my wife.</p> + +<p>Rumania is at present passing through a period of transition. Not only +have the area and population of the country been more than doubled, but +the war has changed all other conditions and the new forms of national +life are still unsettled. In the summer of 1918 even the most optimistic +Rumanians doubted if the nation would emerge from the war with more than +a fraction of its former territory, yet to-day, as a result of the +acquisition of Transylvania, Bessarabia and the eastern half of the +Banat, the country's population has risen from seven to fourteen +millions and its area from 50,000 to more than 100,000 square miles. The +new conditions have brought new laws. Of these the most revolutionary is +the law which forbids landowners to retain more than 1,000 acres of +their land, the government taking over and paying for the residue, which +is given to<span class="pagenum"><a id="page214" name="page214"></a>Pg 214</span> the peasants to cultivate. As a result of this policy, +there have been practically no strikes or labor troubles in Rumania, +for, now that most of their demands have been conceded, the Rumanian +peasants seem willing to seek their welfare in work instead of +Bolshevism. Heretofore the Jews, though liable to military service, have +not been permitted a voice in the government of their country, but, as a +result of recent legislation, they have now been granted full civil +rights, though whether they will be permitted to exercise them is +another question. The Jews, who number upwards of a quarter of a +million, have a strangle hold on the finances of the country and they +must not be permitted, the Rumanians insist, to get a similar grip on +the nation's politics. It is only very recently, indeed, that Rumanian +Jews have been granted passports, which meant that only those rich +enough to obtain papers by bribery could enter or leave the country. The +Rumanians with whom I discussed the question said quite frankly that the +legislation granting suffrage to the Jews would probably be observed +very much as the Constitutional Amendment<span class="pagenum"><a id="page215" name="page215"></a>Pg 215</span> granting suffrage to the +negroes is observed in our own South.</p> + +<p>The truth of the matter is that Rumania is in the hands of a clique of +selfish and utterly unscrupulous politicians who have grown rich from +their systematic exploitation of the national resources. Every bank and +nearly every commercial enterprise of importance is in their hands. One +of the present ministers entered the cabinet a poor man; to-day he is +reputed to be worth twenty millions. Anything can be purchased in +Rumania—passports, exemption from military service, cabinet portfolios, +commercial concessions—if you have the money to pay for it. The fingers +of Rumanian officials are as sticky as those of the Turks. An officer of +the American Relief Administration told me that barely sixty per cent, +of the supplies sent from the United States for the relief of the +Rumanian peasantry ever reached those for whom they were intended; the +other forty per cent, was kept by various officials. To find a parallel +for the political corruption which exists throughout Rumania it is +necessary to go back to New York under the Tweed administration or to +Mexico under the Diaz régime.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page216" name="page216"></a>Pg 216</span></p> + +<p>From a wealthy Hungarian landowner, with whom I traveled from Bucharest +to the frontier of Jugoslavia, I obtained a graphic idea of what can be +accomplished by money in Rumania. This young Hungarian, who had been +educated in England and spoke with a Cambridge accent, possessed large +estates in northeastern Hungary. After four years' service as an officer +of cavalry he was demobilized upon the signing of the Armistice. When +the revolution led by Bela Kun broke out in Budapest he escaped from +that city on foot, only to be arrested by the Rumanians as he was +crossing the Rumanian frontier. Fortunately for him, he had ample funds +in his possession, obtained from the sale of the cattle on his estate, +so that he was able to purchase his freedom after spending only three +days in jail. But his release did not materially improve his situation, +for he had no passport and, as Hungary was then under Bolshevist rule, +he was unable to obtain one. And he realized that without a passport it +would be impossible for him to join his wife and children, who were +awaiting him in Switzerland. As luck would have it, however, he was +slightly acquainted with the pre<span class="pagenum"><a id="page217" name="page217"></a>Pg 217</span>fect of a small town in +Transylvania—for obvious reasons I shall not mention its name—which he +finally reached after great difficulty, traveling by night and lying +hidden by day so as to avoid being halted and questioned by the Rumanian +patrols. By paying the prefect 1,000 francs and giving him and his +friends a dinner at the local hotel, he obtained a certificate stating +that he was a citizen of the town and in good standing with the local +authorities. Armed with this document, which was sufficient to convince +inquisitive border officials of his Rumanian nationality, he took train +for Bucharest, where he spent five weeks dickering for a Rumanian +passport which would enable him to leave the country. Including the +bribes and entertainments which he gave to officials, and gifts of one +sort and another to minor functionaries, it cost him something over +25,000 francs to obtain a passport duly viséd for Switzerland. But my +friend's anxieties did not end there, for a Rumanian leaving the country +was not permitted to take more than 1,000 francs in currency with him, +those suspected of having in their possession funds in excess of this +amount being subjected to a careful search at the fron<span class="pagenum"><a id="page218" name="page218"></a>Pg 218</span>tier. My friend +had with him, however, something over 500,000 francs, all that he had +been able to realize from his estates. How to get this sum out of the +country was a perplexing problem, but he finally solved it by concealing +the notes, which were of large denomination, in the bottom of a box of +expensive face powder, which, he explained to the officials at the +frontier, he was taking as a present to his wife. When the train drew +into the first Serbian station and he realized that he was beyond the +reach of pursuit, he capered up and down the platform like a small boy +when school closes for the long vacation.</p> + +<p>Considerable astonishment seems to have been manifested by the American +press and public at the disinclination of Rumania and Jugoslavia to sign +the treaty with Austria without reservations. Yet this should scarcely +occasion surprise, for the attitude of the great among the Allies toward +the smaller brethren who helped them along the road to victory has been +at times blameworthy, often inexplicable, and on frequent occasions +arrogant and tactless. At the outset of the Peace Conference some +endeavor was made to live up<span class="pagenum"><a id="page219" name="page219"></a>Pg 219</span> to the promises so loudly made that +henceforth the rights of the weak were to receive as much attention as +those of the strong. Commissions were formed to study various aspects of +the questions involved in the peace and upon these the representatives +of the smaller nations were given seats. But this did not last long. +Within a month Messrs. Wilson, Lloyd-George, Clémenceau and Orlando had +made themselves virtually the dictators of the Peace Conference, +deciding behind closed doors matters of vital moment to the national +welfare of the small states without so much as taking them into +consultation. Prime Minister Bratianu, who went to Paris as the head of +the Rumanian peace delegation, told me, his voice hoarse with +indignation, that the "Big Four," in settling Rumania's future +boundaries, had not only not consulted him but that he had not even been +informed of the terms decided upon. "They hand us a fountain pen and say +'Sign here,'" the Premier exclaimed, "and then they are surprised if we +refuse to affix our signatures to a document which vitally concerns our +national future but about which we have never been consulted."</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page220" name="page220"></a>Pg 220</span></p> + +<p>We Americans, of all peoples, should realize that a small nation is as +jealous of its independence as a large one. As a matter of fact, Rumania +and her sister-states of Southeastern Europe, who still bear the scars +of Turkish oppression, are super-sensitive in this respect, the fact +that they have so often been the victims of intriguing neighbors making +them more than ordinarily suspicious and resentful toward any action +which tends to limit their mastery of their own households. Hence they +regard that clause of the Treaty of St. Germain providing for the +protection of ethnical minorities with an indignation which cannot +easily be appreciated by the Western nations. The boundaries of the new +and aggrandized states of Southeastern Europe will necessarily include +alien minorities—this cannot be avoided—and the Peace Conference held +that the welfare of such minorities must be the special concern of the +League of Nations. Take the case of Rumania, for example. In order to +unite her people she must annex some compact masses of aliens which, in +certain cases at least, have been deliberately planted within +ethnological frontiers for a specific purpose. The settlements of +Mag<span class="pagenum"><a id="page221" name="page221"></a>Pg 221</span>yars in Transylvania, who, under Hungarian rule, were permitted to +exploit their Rumanian neighbors without let or hindrance, will not +willingly surrender the privileges they have so long enjoyed and submit +to a régime of strict justice and equality. On the other hand, Rumania +can scarcely be expected to agree to an arrangement which would not only +impair her sovereignty but would almost certainly encourage intrigue and +unrest among these alien minorities. How would the United States regard +a proposal to submit its administration of the Philippines to +international control? How would England like the League of Nations to +take a hand in the government of Ireland? That, briefly stated, is the +reason why both Rumania and Jugoslavia objected so strongly to the +inclusion of the so-called racial minorities clause in the Treaty of St. +Germain. Looking at the other side of the question, it Is easy to +understand the solicitude which the treaty-makers at Paris displayed for +the thousands of Magyars, Serbs and Bulgars who, without so much as a +by-your-leave, they have placed under Rumanian rule. No less authority +than Viscount Bryce has made the assertion that in<span class="pagenum"><a id="page222" name="page222"></a>Pg 222</span> Transylvania alone +(which, by the way, has an area considerably greater than all our New +England states put together), which has been taken over by Rumania, +fully a third of the population has no affinity with the Rumanians. +Similarly, there are whole towns in the Dobrudja which are composed of +Bulgarians, there are large groups of Russian Slavs in Bessarabia, and +considerable colonies of Jugoslavs in the eastern half of the Banat +which, very much against their wishes, have been forced to submit to +Rumanian rule. Whether, now that the tables are turned, the Rumanians +will put aside their ancient animosities and prejudices and give these +new and unwilling citizens every privilege which they themselves enjoy, +is a question which only the future can solve.</p> + +<p>Another question, which has agitated Rumania even more violently than +that of the racial minorities clause, was the demand made by the Great +Powers that the Rumanian army be withdrawn from Hungary and that the +livestock and agricultural implements of which that unhappy country was +stripped by the Rumanian forces be immediately returned. Here is the +Rumanian version: Hungary went Bolshevist<span class="pagenum"><a id="page223" name="page223"></a>Pg 223</span> and assumed a hostile +attitude toward Rumania, Czechoslovakia and Jugoslavia, the three +countries which will benefit by her dismemberment according to the +principle of nationality. Hungary attacked these countries by arms and +by anarchistic propaganda. The Rumanians, the Czechoslovaks and the +Jugoslavs, wishing to defend themselves, asked permission of the Supreme +Council to deal drastically with the Hungarian menace. The reply, which +was late in coming, was couched in vague and unsatisfactory language. +Emboldened by the vacillatory attitude of the Powers, the Hungarians +began a military offensive, invading Czechoslovakia and crossing the +lines of the Armistice in Rumania and Jugoslavia. In order to prevent a +spread of this Bolshevist movement the three countries prepared to +occupy Hungary with troops, whereupon a command came from the Supreme +Council in Paris that such aggression would not be tolerated. This +encouraged Bela Kun, the Hungarian Trotzky, and made him so popular that +he succeeded in raising a Red army with which he crossed the River +Theiss and invaded Rumania. Whereupon the Rumanian army, being unable to +obtain sup<span class="pagenum"><a id="page224" name="page224"></a>Pg 224</span>port from the Supreme Council, pushed back the Hungarians, +occupied Budapest, overthrew Bela Kun's administration and restored +order in Hungary. But the Supreme Council, feeling that its authority +had been ignored by the little country, sent several messages to the +Rumanian Government peremptorily ordering it to withdraw its troops +immediately from Hungary. Here endeth the Rumanian version.</p> + +<p>Now the real reason which actuated the Supreme Council was not that it +felt that its authority had been slighted, but because it was informed +by its representatives in Hungary that the Rumanians had not stopped +with ousting Bela Kun and suppressing Bolshevism, but were engaged in +systematically looting the country, driving off thousands of head of +livestock, and carrying away all the machinery, rolling stock, telephone +and telegraph wires and instruments and metalwork they could lay their +hands on, thereby completely crippling the industries of Hungary and +depriving great numbers of people of employment. The Rumanians retorted +that the Austro-German armies had systematically looted Rumania during +their three years of occupation and that they were only taking<span class="pagenum"><a id="page225" name="page225"></a>Pg 225</span> back +what belonged to them. The Hungarians, while admitting that Rumania had +been pretty thoroughly stripped of animals and machinery by von +Mackensen's armies, asserted that this loot had not remained in Hungary +but had been taken to Germany, which was probably true. The Supreme +Council took the position that the animals and material which the +Rumanians were rushing out of Hungary in train-loads was not the sole +property of Rumania, but that it was the property of all the Allies, and +that the Supreme Council would apportion it among them in its own good +time. The Council pointed out, furthermore, that if the Rumanians +succeeded in wrecking Hungary industrially, as they were evidently +trying to do, it would be manifestly impossible for the Hungarians to +pay any war indemnity whatsoever. And finally, that a bankrupt and +starving Hungary meant a Bolshevist Hungary and that there was already +enough trouble of that sort in Eastern Europe without adding to it. The +Rumanians proving deaf to these arguments, the Supreme Council sent +three messages, one after the other, to the Bucharest government, +ordering the immediate withdrawal from Hun<span class="pagenum"><a id="page226" name="page226"></a>Pg 226</span>garian soil of the Rumanian +troops. Yet the Rumanian troops remained in Budapest and the looting of +Hungary continued, the Rumanian government declaring that the messages +had never been received. Meanwhile every one in the kingdom, from +Premier to peasant, was laughing in his sleeve at the helplessness of +the Supreme Council. But they laughed too soon. For the Supreme Council +wired to the Food Administrator, Herbert Hoover, who was in Vienna, +informing him of the facts of the situation, whereupon Mr. Hoover, who +has a blunt and uncomfortably direct way of achieving his ends, sent a +curt message to the Rumanian government informing it that, if the orders +of the Supreme Council were not immediately obeyed, he would shut off +its supplies of food. <i>That</i> message produced action. The troops were +withdrawn. I can recall no more striking example of the amazing changes +brought about in Europe by the Great War than the picture of this +boyish-faced Californian mining engineer coolly giving orders to a +European government, and having those orders promptly obeyed, after the +commands of the Great Powers had been met with refusal and derision. To<span class="pagenum"><a id="page227" name="page227"></a>Pg 227</span> +take a slight liberty with the lines of Mr. Kipling—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0"><i>"The Kings must come down and the Emperors frown</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>When Herbert Hoover says 'Stop!'"</i><br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Up to that time the United States had been immensely popular in Rumania. +But Mr. Hoover's action made us about as popular with the Rumanians as +the smallpox. He and we were charged with being actuated by the most +despicable and sordid motives. The King himself told me that he was +convinced that Mr. Hoover was in league with certain great commercial +interests which wished to take their revenge for their failure to obtain +commercial concessions of great value in Rumania. A cabinet minister, in +discussing the incident with me, became so inarticulate with rage that +he could scarcely talk at all.</p> + +<p>But the United States is not the only country which has lost the +confidence of the Rumanians. France is even more deeply distrusted and +disliked than we are. And this in spite of the fact that the upper +classes of Rumania have held up the French as their ideal for the past +fifty years. Indeed, wealthy Rumanians live<span class="pagenum"><a id="page228" name="page228"></a>Pg 228</span> in a fashion more French +than if they dwelt in Paris itself. This sudden unpopularity of the +French is due to several causes. After having expected much of them, the +people were amazed and bitterly disappointed at their apparent +indifference toward the future of Rumania. Then there were the +unfortunate incidents at Odessa, the withdrawal of the French forces +from that city before the advance of the Bolsheviks, and the regrettable +happening in the French Black Sea fleet These things, of course, +contributed to loss of French prestige. Another contributory factor has +been the lack of enterprise of French capitalists, causing those who +control the financial and economic development of Rumania to seek +encouragement and assistance elsewhere. But the underlying reason for +the deep-seated distrust of France is to be found, I think, in France's +attempt to maintain the balance of power in Southeastern Europe by +building up a strong Jugoslavia. Now the Rumanians, it must be +remembered, hate the Jugoslavs even more bitterly than they hate the +Hungarians—and they are far more afraid of them. This hatred is not +merely the result of the age-long antago<span class="pagenum"><a id="page229" name="page229"></a>Pg 229</span>nism between the Latin and the +Slav; it is also political. The Rumanians have watched with growing +jealousy and apprehension the expansion of Serbia into a state with a +population and area nearly equal to their own. After having long dreamed +of the day when they would themselves be arbiters of the destinies of +the nations of Southeastern Europe, they see their political supremacy +challenged by the new Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, behind +which they discern the power and influence of France. When the +dismemberment of the Austro-Hungarian Empire began, Rumania demanded and +expected the whole of the great rich province of the Banat, with the +Maros River for her northern and the Danube for her southern frontier.</p> + +<p>"But that would place our capital within range of the Rumanian +artillery," the Serbian prime minister is said to have exclaimed.</p> + +<p>"Then move your capital," the Rumanian premier responded drily.</p> + +<p>As a result of this controversy over the Banat the relations of the two +nations have been strained almost to the breaking-point. When I was in +the Banat in the autumn of 1919 the<span class="pagenum"><a id="page230" name="page230"></a>Pg 230</span> Rumanian and Serbian frontier +guards were glowering at each other like fighting terriers held in +leash, and the slightest untoward incident would have precipitated a +conflict! Although, by the terms of the Treaty of St. Germain, +Jugoslavia was awarded the western half of the Banat, Rumania is +prepared to take advantage of the first opportunity which presents +itself to take it away from her rival. When I was in Bucharest a cabinet +minister concluded a lengthy exposition of Rumania's position by +declaring:</p> + +<p>"Within the next two or three years, in all probability, there will be a +war between Jugoslavia and Italy over the Dalmatian question. The day +that Jugoslavia goes to war with Italy we will attack Jugoslavia and +seize the Banat. The Danube is Rumania's natural and logical frontier."</p> + +<p>This would seem to bear out the assertion that there exists a secret +alliance between Italy and Rumania, which, if true, would place +Jugoslavia in the unhappy position of a nut between the jaws of a +cracker. I have also been told on excellent authority that there is +likewise an "understanding" between Italy and Bulgaria<span class="pagenum"><a id="page231" name="page231"></a>Pg 231</span> that, should the +former become engaged in a war with the Jugoslavs, the latter will +attack the Serbs from the east and regain her lost provinces in +Macedonia. A pleasant prospect for Southeastern Europe, truly.</p> + +<p>While we were in Bucharest we received an invitation—"command" is the +correct word according to court usage—to visit the King and Queen of +Rumania at their Château of Pelesch, near Sinaia, in the Carpathians. It +is about a hundred miles by road from the capital to Sinaia and the +first half of the journey, which we made by motor, was over a road as +execrable as any we found in the Balkans. Upon reaching the foothills of +the Carpathians, however, the highway, which had been steadily growing +worse, suddenly took a turn for the better—due, no doubt, to the +invigorating qualities of the mountain atmosphere—and climbed +vigorously upward through wild gorges and splendid pine forests which +reminded me of the Adirondacks of Northern New York. Notwithstanding the +atrocious condition of the highway, which constantly threatened to +dislocate our joints as well as those of the car, and the choking, +blinding clouds of yellow<span class="pagenum"><a id="page232" name="page232"></a>Pg 232</span> dust, every change of figure on the +speedometer brought new and interesting scenes. For mile after mile the +road, straight as though marked out by a ruler, ran between fields of +wheat and corn as vast as those of our own West. In spite of the fact +that the Austro-Germans carried off all the animals and farming +implements they could lay their hands on, the agricultural prosperity of +Rumania is astounding. In 1916, for example, while involved in a +terribly destructive war, Rumania produced more wheat than Minnesota and +about twenty-five times as much corn as our three Pacific Coast states +combined. At frequent intervals we passed huge scarlet threshing +machines, most of them labeled "Made in U.S.A.," which were centers of +activity for hundreds of white-smocked peasants who were hauling in the +grain with ox-teams, feeding it into the voracious maws of the machines, +and piling the residue of straw into the largest stacks I have ever +seen. As we drew near the mountains the grain fields gave way to grazing +lands where great herds of cattle of various breeds—brindled milch +animals, massive cream-colored oxen, blue-gray buffalo with elephant +like hides and broad, curv<span class="pagenum"><a id="page233" name="page233"></a>Pg 233</span>ing horns, and gaunt steers that looked for +all the world like Texas longhorns—browsed amid the lush green grass.</p> + +<p>Though the villages of the Wallachian plain are few and far between, and +though it is no uncommon thing for a peasant to walk a dozen miles from +his home to the fields in which he works, the whole region seemed a-hum +with industry. The Rumanian peasant, like his fellows below the Danube, +is, as a rule, a good-natured, easy-going though easily excited, +reasonably honest and extremely industrious fellow who labors from dawn +to darkness in six days of the week and spends the seventh in harmless +village carouses, chiefly characterized by dancing, music and the cheap +native wine. Rumania is one of the few countries in Europe where the +peasants still dress like the pictures on the postcards. The men wear +curly-brimmed shovel hats of black felt, like those affected by English +curates, and loose shirts of white linen, whose tails, instead of being +tucked into the trousers, flap freely about their legs, giving them the +appearance of having responded to an alarm of fire without waiting to +finish dressing. On Sundays and holidays men and women alike<span class="pagenum"><a id="page234" name="page234"></a>Pg 234</span> appear in +garments covered with the gorgeous needlework for which Rumania is +famous, some of the women's dresses being so heavily embroidered in gold +and silver that from a little distance the wearers look as though they +were enveloped in chain mail. A considerable and undesirable element of +Rumania's population consists of gipsies, whence their name of Romany, +or Rumani. The Rumanian gipsies, who are nomads and vagrants like their +kinsmen in the United States, are generally lazy, quarrelsome, dishonest +and untrustworthy, supporting themselves by horse-trading and +cattle-stealing or by their flocks and herds. We stopped near one of +their picturesque encampments in order to repair a tire and I took a +picture of a young woman with a child in her arms, but when I declined +to pay her the five lei she demanded for the privilege, she flew at me +like an angry cat, screaming curses and maledictions. But her picture +was not worth five lei, as you can see for yourself.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 219px;"> +<a id="image15" name="image15"> +<img src="images/16.jpg" width="219" height="341" alt="THE GYPSY WHO DEMANDED FIVE LEI FOR THE PRIVILEGE OF TAKING HER PICTURE" title="THE GYPSY WHO DEMANDED FIVE LEI FOR THE PRIVILEGE OF TAKING HER PICTURE" /></a> +<span class="caption">THE GYPSY WHO DEMANDED FIVE LEI FOR THE PRIVILEGE OF TAKING HER PICTURE</span> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 217px;"> +<a id="image16" name="image16"> +<img src="images/15.jpg" width="217" height="342" alt="A PEASANT OF OLD SERBIA" +title="A PEASANT OF OLD SERBIA" /></a> +<span class="caption">A PEASANT OF OLD SERBIA<br /> +The Serbian peasant is simple, kindly, hospitable, honest, and generous, +and, though he could not be described ... as a hard worker, his wife +invariably is</span> +</div> + +<p>The Castle of Pelesch is just such a royal residence as Anthony Hope has +depicted in <i>The Prisoner of Zenda</i>. It gives the impression, at first +sight, of a confusion of turrets, gables,<span class="pagenum"><a id="page235" name="page235"></a>Pg 235</span> balconies, terraces, +parapets and fountains, but one quickly forgets its architectural +shortcomings in the beauty of its surroundings. It stands amid velvet +lawns and wonderful rose gardens in a sort of forest glade, from which +the pine-clothed slopes of the Carpathians rise steeply on every side, +the beam-and-plaster walls, the red-tiled roofs, and the blazing gardens +of the château forming a striking contrast to the austerity of the +mountains and the solemnity of the encircling forest.</p> + +<p>We had rather expected to be presented to Queen Marie with some +semblance of formality in one of the reception rooms of the château, but +she sent word by her lady-in-waiting that she would receive us in the +gardens. A few minutes later she came swinging toward us across a great +stretch of rolling lawn, a splendid figure of a woman, dressed in a +magnificent native costume of white and silver, a white scarf partially +concealing her masses of tawny hair, a long-bladed poniard in a silver +sheath hanging from her girdle. At her heels were a dozen Russian wolf +hounds, the gift, so she told me, of the Grand Duke Nicholas, the former +commander-in-chief of the Russian armies.<span class="pagenum"><a id="page236" name="page236"></a>Pg 236</span> I have seen many queens, but +I have never seen one who so completely meets the popular conception of +what a queen should look like as Marie of Rumania. Though in the middle +forties, her complexion is so faultless, her physique so superb, her +presence so commanding that, were she utterly unknown, she would still +be a center of attraction in any assemblage. Had she not been born to a +crown she would almost certainly have made a great name for herself, +probably as an actress. She paints exceptionally well and has written +several successful books and stories, thereby following the example of +her famous predecessor on the Rumanian throne, Queen Elizabeth, better +known as Carmen Sylva. She speaks English like an Englishwoman, as well +she may, for she is a granddaughter of Queen Victoria. She is also a +descendant of the Romanoffs, for one of her grandfathers was Alexander +III of Russia. In her manner she is more simple and democratic than many +American women that I know, her poise and simplicity being in striking +contrast to the manners of two of my countrywomen who had spent the +night preceding our arrival at the castle and who were manifestly much<span class="pagenum"><a id="page237" name="page237"></a>Pg 237</span> +impressed by this contact with the Lord's Anointed. When luncheon was +announced her second daughter, Princess Marie, had not put in an +appearance. But, instead of despatching the major domo to inform her +Royal Highness that the meal was served, the Queen stepped to the foot +of the great staircase and called, "Hurry up, Mignon. You're keeping us +all waiting," whereupon a voice replied from the upper regions, "All +right, mamma. I'll be down in a minute." Not much like the picture of +palace life that the novelists and the motion-picture playwrights give +us, is it? I might add that the Queen commonly refers to the plump young +princess as "Fatty," a nickname which she hardly deserves, however. In +her conversations with me the Queen was at times almost disconcertingly +frank. "Royalty is going out of fashion," she remarked on one occasion, +"but I like my job and I'm going to do everything I can to keep it." To +Mrs. Powell she said, "I have beauty, intelligence and executive +ability. I would be successful in life if I were not a queen."</p> + +<p>Unlike many persons who occupy exalted positions, she has a real sense +of humor.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page238" name="page238"></a>Pg 238</span></p> + +<p>"Yesterday," she remarked, "was Nicholas's birthday," referring to her +second son, Prince Nicholas, who, since his elder brother, Prince Carol, +renounced his rights to the throne in order to marry the girl he loved, +has become the heir apparent. "At breakfast his father remarked, 'I'm +sorry, Nicholas, but I haven't any birthday present for you. The shops +in Bucharest were pretty well cleaned out by the Germans, you know, and +I didn't remember your birthday in time to send to Paris for a present.' +'Do you really wish to give Nicholas a present, Nando?' (the diminutive +of Ferdinand) I asked him. 'Of course I do,' the King answered, 'but +what is there to give him?' 'That's the easiest thing in the world,' I +replied. 'There is nothing that would give Nicholas so much pleasure as +an engraving of his dear father—on a thousand-franc note.'"</p> + +<p>Prince Nicholas, the future king of Rumania, who is being educated at +Eton, looks and acts like any normal American "prep" school boy.</p> + +<p>"Do the boys still wear top hats at Eton?" I asked him.</p> + +<p>"Yes, they do," he answered, "but it's a silly custom. And they cost two +guineas apiece. I<span class="pagenum"><a id="page239" name="page239"></a>Pg 239</span> leave it to you, Major, if two guineas isn't too much +for any hat."</p> + +<p>When I told him that in democratic America certain Fifth Avenue hatters +charge the equivalent of five guineas for a bowler he looked at me in +frank unbelief. "But then," he remarked, "all Americans are rich."</p> + +<p>Shortly before luncheon we were joined by King Ferdinand, a slenderly +built man, somewhat under medium height, with a grizzled beard, a genial +smile and merry, twinkling eyes. He wore the gray-green field uniform +and gold-laced kepi of a Rumanian general, the only thing about his +dress which suggested his exalted rank being the insignia of the Order +of Michael the Brave, which hung from his neck by a gold-and-purple +ribbon. Were you to see him in other clothes and other circumstances you +might well mistake him for an active and successful professional man. +King Ferdinand is the sort of man one enjoys chatting with in front of +an open fire over the cigars, for, in addition to being a shrewd judge +of men and events and having a remarkably exact knowledge of world +affairs, he possesses in an alto<span class="pagenum"><a id="page240" name="page240"></a>Pg 240</span>gether exceptional degree the qualities +of tact, kindliness and humor.</p> + +<p>The King did not hesitate to express his indignation that the re-making +of the map of Europe should have been entrusted to men who possessed so +little first-hand knowledge of the nations whose boundaries they were +re-shaping.</p> + +<p>"A few days before the signing of the Treaty of St. Germain," he told +me, "Lloyd George sent for one of the experts attached to the Peace +Conference.</p> + +<p>"'Where is this Banat that Rumania and Serbia are quarreling over?' he +inquired.</p> + +<p>"'I will show you, sir,' the attaché answered, unrolling a map of +southeastern Europe. For several minutes he explained in detail to the +British Premier the boundaries of the Banat and the conflicting +territorial claims to which its division had given rise. But when he +paused Lloyd George made no response. He was sound asleep!</p> + +<p>"Yet a little group of men," the King continued, "who know no more about +the nations whose destinies they are deciding than Lloyd George knew +about the Banat, have abrogated to themselves the right to cut up and +apportion<span class="pagenum"><a id="page241" name="page241"></a>Pg 241</span> territories as casually as though they were dividing +apple-tarts."</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 481px;"> +<a id="image17" name="image17"> +<img src="images/17.jpg" width="481" height="335" alt="KING FERDINAND TELLS MRS. POWELL HIS OPINION OF THE FASHION IN WHICH THE PEACE CONFERENCE TREATED RUMANIA, WHILE QUEEN MARIE LISTENS APPROVINGLY" title="KING FERDINAND TELLS MRS. POWELL HIS OPINION OF THE FASHION IN WHICH THE PEACE CONFERENCE TREATED RUMANIA, WHILE QUEEN MARIE LISTENS APPROVINGLY" /></a> +<span class="caption">KING FERDINAND TELLS MRS. POWELL HIS OPINION OF THE FASHION IN WHICH THE PEACE CONFERENCE TREATED RUMANIA, WHILE QUEEN MARIE LISTENS APPROVINGLY</span> +</div> + +<p>The impression prevails in other countries that it is Queen Marie who is +really the head of the Rumanian royal family and that the King is little +more than a figurehead. With this estimate I do not agree. Rumania could +have no better spokesman than Queen Marie, whose talents, beauty, and +exceptional tact peculiarly fit her for the difficult rôle she has been +called upon to play. But the King, though he is by nature quiet and +retiring, is by no means lacking in political sagacity or the courage of +his convictions, being, I am convinced, as important a factor in the +government of his country as the limitations of its constitution permit. +Though none too well liked, I imagine, by the professional politicians, +who in Rumania, as in other countries, resent any attempt at +interference by the sovereign with their plans, the royal couple are +immensely popular with the masses of the people, Ferdinand frequently +being referred to as "the peasants' King." In the darkest days of the +war, when Rumania was overrun by the enemy and it seemed as though +Moldavia and the northern Dobrudja<span class="pagenum"><a id="page242" name="page242"></a>Pg 242</span> were all that could be saved to the +nation, King Ferdinand and Queen Marie, instead of escaping from their +country or asking the enemy for terms, retreated with the army to Jassy, +on the easternmost limits of the kingdom, where they underwent the +horrors of that terrible winter with their soldiers, the King serving +with the troops in the field and the Queen working in the hospitals as a +Red Cross nurse. Less than three years later, however, on November +twentieth, 1919, there assembled in Bucharest the first parliament of +Greater Rumania, attended by deputies from all those Rumanian +regions—Bessarabia, Transylvania, the Banat, the Bucovina and the +Dobrudja—which had been restored to the Rumanian motherland. At the +head of the chamber, in the great gilt chair of state, sat Ferdinand I, +who, from the fugitive ruler, shivering with his ragged soldiers in the +frozen marshes beside the Pruth, has become the sovereign of a country +having the sixth largest population in Europe and has taken his place in +Rumanian history beside Stephen the Great and Michael the Brave as +Ferdinand the Liberator.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page243" name="page243"></a>Pg 243</span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER VII</h2> + +<h3>MAKING A NATION TO ORDER</h3> + + +<p>From the young officers who wore on their shoulders the silver greyhound +of the American Courier Service we heard many discouraging tales of the +annoyances and discomforts for which we must be prepared in traveling +through Hungary, the Banat and Jugoslavia. But, to tell the truth, I did +not take these warnings very seriously, for I had observed that a +profoundly pessimistic attitude of mind characterized all of the +Americans or English whose duties had kept them in the Balkans for any +length of time. In Salonika this mental condition was referred to as +"the Balkan tap"—derived, no doubt, from the verb "to knock," as with a +hammer—and it usually implied that those suffering from the ailment had +outstayed their period of usefulness and should be sent home.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page244" name="page244"></a>Pg 244</span></p> + +<p>Thrice weekly a train composed of an assortment of ramshackle and +dilapidated coaches, called by courtesy the Orient Express, which +maintained an average speed of fifteen miles an hour, left Bucharest for +Vincovce, a small junction town in the Banat, where it was supposed to +make connections with the south-bound Simplon Express from Paris to +Belgrade and with the north-bound express from Belgrade to Paris. The +Simplon Express likewise ran thrice weekly, so, if the connections were +missed at Vincovce, the passengers were compelled to spend at least two +days in a small Hungarian town which was notorious, even in that region, +for its discomforts and its dirt. All went well with us, however, the +train at one time attaining the dizzy speed of thirty miles an hour, +until, in a particularly desolate portion of the great Hungarian plain, +we came to an abrupt halt. When, after a half hour's wait, I descended +to ascertain the cause of the delay, I found the train crew surrounded +by a group of indignant and protesting passengers.</p> + +<p>"What's the trouble?" I inquired.</p> + +<p>"The engineer claims that he has run out of coal," some one answered. +"But he says that<span class="pagenum"><a id="page245" name="page245"></a>Pg 245</span> there is a coal depot three or four kilometers ahead +and that, if each first-class passenger will contribute fifty francs, +and each second-class passenger twenty francs, he figures that it will +enable him to buy just enough coal to reach Vincovce. Otherwise, he +says, we will probably miss both connections, which means that we must +stay in Vincovce for forty-eight hours. And if you had ever seen +Vincovce you would understand that such a prospect is anything but +alluring."</p> + +<p>While my fellow-passengers were noisily debating the question I strolled +ahead to take a look at the engine. As I had been led to expect from the +stories I had heard from the courier officers, the tender contained an +ample supply of coal—enough, it seemed to me, to haul the train to +Trieste.</p> + +<p>"This is nothing but a hold-up," I told the assembled passengers. "There +is plenty of coal in the tender. I am as anxious to make the connection +as any of you, but I will settle here and raise bananas, or whatever +they do raise in the Banat, before I will submit to this highwayman's +demands."</p> + +<p>Seeing that his bluff had been called, the en<span class="pagenum"><a id="page246" name="page246"></a>Pg 246</span>gineer, favoring me with a +murderous glance, sullenly climbed into his cab and the train started, +only to stop again, however, a few miles further on, this time, the +engineer explained, because the engine had broken down. There being no +way of disputing this statement, it became a question of pay or +stay—and we stayed. The engineer did not get his tribute and we did not +get our train at Vincovce, where we spent twenty hot, hungry and +extremely disagreeable hours before the arrival of a local train bound +for Semlin, across the Danube from Belgrade. We completed our journey to +the Jugoslav capital in a fourth-class compartment into which were +already squeezed two Serbian soldiers, eight peasants, a crate of live +poultry and a dog, to say nothing of a multitude of small and undesired +occupants whose presence caused considerable annoyance to every one, +including the dog. We were glad when the train arrived at Semlin.</p> + +<p>Late in the summer of 1919, as a result of the reconstruction of the +railway bridges which had been blown up by the Bulgarians early in the +war, through service between Salonika and Belgrade was restored. As the +journey con<span class="pagenum"><a id="page247" name="page247"></a>Pg 247</span>sumed from three to five days, however, the train stopping +for the night at stations where the hotel accommodation was of the most +impossible description, the American and British officials and +relief-workers who were compelled to make the journey (I never heard of +any one making it for pleasure) usually hired a freight car, which they +fitted up with army cots and a small cook-stove, thus traveling in +comparative comfort.</p> + +<p>Curiously enough, the only trains running on anything approaching a +schedule in the Balkans were those loaded with Swiss goods and belonging +to the Swiss Government. In crossing Southern Hungary we passed at least +half-a-dozen of them, they being readily distinguished by a Swiss flag +painted on each car. Each train, consisting of forty cars, was +accompanied by a Swiss officer and twenty infantrymen—finely set-up +fellows in <i>feldgrau</i> with steel helmets modeled after the German +pattern. Had the trains not been thus guarded, I was told, the goods +would never have reached their destination and the cars, which are the +property of the Swiss State Railways, would never have been returned. It +is by such drastic methods<span class="pagenum"><a id="page248" name="page248"></a>Pg 248</span> as this that Switzerland, though hard hit by +the war, has kept the wheels of her industries turning and her currency +from serious depreciation. I have rarely seen more hopeless-looking +people than those congregated on the platforms of the little stations at +which we stopped in Hungary. The Rumanian armies had swept the country +clean of livestock and agricultural machinery, throwing thousands of +peasants out of work, and, owing to the appalling depreciation of the +kroner, which was worth less than a twentieth of its normal value, great +numbers of people who, under ordinary conditions, would have been +described as comfortably well off, found themselves with barely +sufficient resources to keep themselves from want. To add to their +discouragement, the greatest uncertainty prevailed as to Hungary's +future. In order to obtain an idea of just how familiar the inhabitants +of the rural districts were with political conditions, I asked four +intelligent-looking men in succession who was the ruler of Hungary and +what was its present form of government. The first opined that the +Archduke Joseph had been chosen king; another ventured the belief that +the country was a re<span class="pagenum"><a id="page249" name="page249"></a>Pg 249</span>public with Bela Kun as president; the third +asserted that Hungary had been annexed to Rumania; while the last man I +questioned said quite frankly that he didn't know who was running the +country, or what its form of government was, and that he didn't much +care. As a result of the decision of the Peace Conference which awarded +Transylvania to Rumania and divided the Banat between Rumania and +Jugoslavia, Hungary finds herself stripped of virtually all her forests, +all her mines, all her oil wells, and all of her manufactories save +those in Budapest, thus stripping the bankrupt and demoralized nation of +practically all of her resources save her wheat-fields. I talked with a +number of Americans and English who were conversant with Hungary's +internal condition and they agreed that it was doubtful if the country, +stripped of its richest territories, deprived of most of its resources, +and hemmed in by hostile and jealous peoples, could long exist as an +independent state. On several occasions I heard the opinion expressed +that sooner or later the Hungarians, in order to save themselves from +complete ruin, would ask to be admitted to the Jugoslav Confederation, +thereby<span class="pagenum"><a id="page250" name="page250"></a>Pg 250</span> obtaining for their products an outlet to the sea. In any +event, the Hungarians appear to have a more friendly feeling for their +Jugoslav neighbors than for the Rumanians, whom they charge with a +deliberate attempt to bring about their economic ruin.</p> + +<p>In spite of the prohibitive cost of labor and materials, we found that +the traces of the Austrian bombardment of Belgrade in 1914, which did +enormous damage to the Serbian capital, were rapidly being effaced and +that the city was fast resuming its pre-war appearance. The place was as +busy as a boom town in the oil country. The Grand Hotel, where the food +was the best and cheapest we found in the Balkans, was filled to the +doors with officers, politicians, members of parliament—for the +Skupshtina was in session—relief workers, commercial travelers and +concession seekers, and the huge Hotel Moskowa, built, I believe, with +Russian capital, was about to reopen. Architecturally, Belgrade shows +many traces of Muscovite influence, many of the more important buildings +having the ornate façades of pink, green and purple tiles, the colored +glass windows, and the gilded domes which are so char<span class="pagenum"><a id="page251" name="page251"></a>Pg 251</span>acteristically +Russian. Though the main thoroughfare of the city, formerly called the +Terásia but now known as Milan Street, is admirably paved with wooden +blocks, the cobble pavements of the other streets have remained +unchanged since the days of Turkish rule, being so rough that it is +almost impossible to drive a motor car over them without imminent danger +of breaking the springs. Five minutes' walk from the center of the city, +on a promontory commanding a superb view of the Danube and its junction +with the Save, is a really charming park known as the Slopes of +Dreaming, where, on fine evenings, almost the entire population of the +capital appears to be promenading, the rather drab appearance of an +urban crowd being brightened by the gaily embroidered costumes of the +peasants and the silver-trimmed uniforms of the Serbian officers.</p> + +<p>The palace known as the Old Konak, where King Alexander and Queen Draga +were assassinated under peculiarly revolting circumstances on the night +of June 11, 1905, and from an upper window of which their mutilated +bodies were thrown into the garden, has been torn down, presumably +because of its unpleasant as<span class="pagenum"><a id="page252" name="page252"></a>Pg 252</span>sociations for the present dynasty, but +only a stone's throw away from the tragic spot is being erected a large +and ornate palace of gray stone, ornamented with numerous carvings, as a +residence for Prince-Regent Alexander, who, when I was there, was +occupying a modest one-story building on the opposite side of the +street. By far the most interesting building in Belgrade, however, is a +low, tile-roofed, white-walled wine-shop at the corner of Knes +Mihajelowa Uliza and Kolartsch Uliza, which is pointed out to visitors +as "the Cradle of the War," for in the low-ceilinged room on the second +floor is said to have been hatched the plot which resulted in the +assassination of the Austrian archducal couple at Serajevo in the spring +of 1914 and thereby precipitated Armageddon.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 544px;"> +<a id="image18" name="image18"> +<img src="images/18.jpg" width="544" height="333" alt="THE WINE-SHOP WHICH IS POINTED OUT TO VISITORS AS "THE CRADLE OF THE WAR"" title="THE WINE-SHOP WHICH IS POINTED OUT TO VISITORS AS "THE CRADLE OF THE WAR"" /></a> +<span class="caption">THE WINE-SHOP WHICH IS POINTED OUT TO VISITORS AS "THE CRADLE OF THE WAR"</span> +</div> + +<p>In this connection, here is a story, told me by a Czechoslovak who had +served as an officer in the Serbian army during the war, which throws an +interesting sidelight on the tragedy of Serajevo. This officer's uncle, +a colonel in the Austrian army, had been, it seemed, equerry to the +Archduke Ferdinand, being in attendance on the Archduke at the Imperial +shooting-lodge in Bohemia when, early in the spring of 1914,<span class="pagenum"><a id="page253" name="page253"></a>Pg 253</span> the +German Emperor, accompanied by Admiral von Tirpitz, went there, +ostensibly for the shooting. The day after their arrival, according to +my informant's story, the Emperor and the Archduke went out with the +guns, leaving Admiral von Tirpitz at the lodge with the Archduchess. The +equerry, who was on duty in an anteroom, through a partly opened door +overheard the Admiral urging the Archduchess to obtain the consent of +her husband—with whom she was known to exert extraordinary +influence—to a union of Austria-Hungary with Germany upon the death of +Francis Joseph, who was then believed to be dying—a scheme which had +long been cherished by the Kaiser and the Pan-Germans.</p> + +<p>"Never will I lend my influence to such a plan!" the equerry heard the +Archduchess violently exclaim. "Never! Never! Never!"</p> + +<p>At the moment the Emperor and the Archduke, having returned from their +battue, entered the room, whereupon the Archduchess, her voice shrill +with indignation, poured out to her husband the story of von Tirpitz's +proposal. The Archduke, always noted for the violence of his temper, +promptly sided with his<span class="pagenum"><a id="page254" name="page254"></a>Pg 254</span> wife, angrily accusing the Kaiser of intriguing +behind his back against the independence of Austria. Ensued a violent +altercation between the ruler of Germany and the Austrian heir-apparent, +which ended in the Kaiser and his adviser abruptly terminating their +visit and departing the same evening for Berlin.</p> + +<p>For the truth of this story I do not vouch; I merely repeat it in the +words in which it was told to me by an officer whose veracity I have no +reason to question. There are many things which point to its +probability. Certain it is that the Archduke, who was a man of strong +character and passionately devoted to the best interests of the Dual +Monarchy, was the greatest obstacle to the Kaiser's scheme for the union +of the two empires under his rule, a scheme which, could it have been +realized, would have given Germany that highroad to the East and that +outlet to the Warm Water of which the Pan-Germans had long dreamed. The +assassination of the Archduke a few weeks later not only removed the +greatest stumbling-block to these schemes of Teutonic expansion, but it +further served the Kaiser's purpose by forcing Austria into war with +Serbia, thereby<span class="pagenum"><a id="page255" name="page255"></a>Pg 255</span> making Austria responsible, in the eyes of the world, +for launching the conflict which the Kaiser had planned.</p> + +<p>There has never been any conclusive proof, remember, that the Serbs were +responsible for Ferdinand's assasination. Not that there is anything in +their history which would lead one to believe that they would balk at +that method of removing an enemy, but, regarded from a political +standpoint, it would have been the most unintelligent and short-sighted +thing they could possibly have done. Nor are the Serbs and the +Pan-Germans the only ones to whom the crime might logically be traced. +Ferdinand, remember, had many enemies within the borders of his own +country. The Austrian anti-clericals hated and distrusted him because he +surrounded himself by Jesuit advisers and because he was believed to be +unduly under the influence of the Church of Rome. He was equally +unpopular with a large and powerful element of the Hungarians, who +foresaw a serious diminution of their influence in the affairs of the +monarchy should the Archduke succeed in realizing his dream of a Triple +King<span class="pagenum"><a id="page256" name="page256"></a>Pg 256</span>dom composed of Austria, Hungary and the Southern Slavs.</p> + +<p>Strange indeed are the changes which have been brought about by the +greatest conflict. Ferdinand, descendant of a long line of princes, +kings and emperors, has passed round that dark corner whence no man +returns, but his ambitious dreams of a triple kingdom which would +include the Southern Slavs have survived him, though in a somewhat +modified form. But he who sits on the throne of the new kingdom, and who +rules to-day over a great portion of the former dominions of the +Hapsburgs, instead of being a scion of the Imperial House of Austria, is +the great-grandson of a Serbian blacksmith.</p> + +<p>Owing to the ill-health and advanced age of King Peter of Serbia, his +second son, Alexander, is Prince-Regent of the Kingdom of the Serbs, +Croats and Slovenes. Prince Alexander, a slender, dark-complexioned man +with characteristically Slav features, was educated in Vienna and is +said to be an excellent soldier. He is extremely democratic, simple in +manner, a student, a hard worker, and devoted to the best interests of +his people. Though he is an<span class="pagenum"><a id="page257" name="page257"></a>Pg 257</span> accomplished horseman, a daring, even +reckless motorist, and an excellent shot, he is probably the loneliest +man in his kingdom, for he has no close associates of his own age, being +surrounded by elderly and serious-minded advisers; his aged father is in +a sanitarium, his scapegrace elder brother lives in Paris, and his +sister, a Russian grand duchess, makes her home on the Riviera. Though +old beyond his years and visibly burdened by the responsibilities of his +difficult position, he possesses a peculiarly winning manner and is +immensely popular with his soldiers, whose hardships he shared +throughout the war. Though he enjoys no great measure of popularity +among his new Croat and Slovene subjects, who might be expected to +regard any Serb ruler with a certain degree of jealousy and suspicion, +he has unquestionably won their profound respect. It is a difficult and +trying position which this young man occupies, and it is not made any +easier for him, I imagine, by the knowledge that, should he make a false +step, should he arouse the enmity of certain of the powerful factions +which surround him, the fate of his<span class="pagenum"><a id="page258" name="page258"></a>Pg 258</span> predecessor and namesake, King +Alexander, might quite conceivably befall him.</p> + +<p>I have been asked if, in my opinion, the peoples composing the new state +of Jugoslavia will stick together. If there could be effected a +confederation, modeled on that of Switzerland or the United States, in +which the component states would have equal representation, with the +executive power vested in a Federal Council, as in Switzerland, then I +believe that Jugoslavia would develop into a stable and prosperous +nation. But I very much doubt if the Croats, the Slovenes, the Bosnians +and the Montenegrins will willingly consent to a permanent arrangement +whereby the new nation is placed under a Serbian dynasty, no matter how +complete are the safeguards afforded by the constitution or how +conscientious and fair-minded the sovereign himself may be. No one +questions the ability or the honesty of purpose of Prince Alexander, but +the non-Serb elements feel, and not wholly without justification, that a +Serbian prince on the throne means Serbian politicians in places of +authority, thereby giving Serbia a disproportionate share of authority<span class="pagenum"><a id="page259" name="page259"></a>Pg 259</span> +in the government of Jugoslavia, as Prussia had in the government of the +German Empire.</p> + +<p>Already there have been manifestations of friction between the Serbs and +the Croats and between the Serbs and the Slovenes, to say nothing of the +open hostility which exists between the Serbs and certain Montenegrin +factions, to which I have alluded in a preceding chapter. It should be +remembered that the Croats and Slovenes, though members of the great +family of Southern Slavs, have by no means as much in common with their +Serb kinsmen as is generally believed. Croatia and Slovenia have both +educated and wealthy classes. Serbia, on the contrary, has a very small +educated class and practically no wealthy class, it being said that +there is not a millionaire in the country. Slovenia and Croatia each +have their aristocracies, with titles and estates and traditions; +Serbia's population is wholly composed of peasants, or of business and +professional men who come from peasant stock. As a result of the large +sums which were spent on public instruction in Croatia and Slovenia +under Austrian rule, only a comparatively small proportion of the +population is illiterate. But<span class="pagenum"><a id="page260" name="page260"></a>Pg 260</span> in Serbia public education is still in a +regrettably backward state, the latest figures available showing that +less than seventeen per cent. of the population can read and write, a +condition which, I doubt not, will rapidly improve with the +reestablishment of peace. Laibach (now known as Lubiana), the chief city +of Croatia, Agram, in Slovenia, and Serajevo, the capital of Bosnia, +have long been known as education centers, possessing a culture and +educational facilities of which far larger cities would have reason to +be proud. But Belgrade, having been, as it were, on the frontier of +European civilization, has been compelled to concentrate its energies +and its resources on commerce and the national defense. The attitude of +the people of Agram toward the less sophisticated and cultured Serbs +might be compared to that of an educated Bostonian toward an Arizona +ranchman—a worthy, industrious fellow, no doubt, but rather lacking in +culture and refinement. The truth of the matter is that the Croats and +the Slovenes, though only too glad to escape the Allies' wrath by +claiming kinship with the Serbs and taking refuge under the banner of +Jugoslavia, at heart consider themselves im<span class="pagenum"><a id="page261" name="page261"></a>Pg 261</span>measurably superior to their +southern kinsmen, whose political dictation, now that the storm has +passed, they are beginning to resent.</p> + +<p>The first impression which the Serb makes upon a stranger is rarely a +favorable one. As an American diplomat, who is a sincere friend of +Serbia, remarked to me, "The Serb has neither manner nor manners. The +visitor always sees his worst side while his best side remains hidden. +He never puts his best foot forward."</p> + +<p>A certain sullen defiance of public opinion is, it has sometimes seemed +to me, a characteristic of the Serb. He gives one the impression of +constantly carrying a chip on his shoulder and daring any one to knock +it off. He is always eager for an argument, but, like so many +argumentative persons, it is almost impossible to convince him that he +is in the wrong. The slightest opposition often drives him into an +almost childlike rage and if things go against him he is apt to charge +his opponent with insincerity or prejudice. He can see things only one +way, <i>his</i> way and he resents criticism so violently that it is seldom +wise to argue with him.</p> + +<p>Though the Serb, when afforded opportuni<span class="pagenum"><a id="page262" name="page262"></a>Pg 262</span>ties for education, usually +shows great brilliancy as a student and often climbs high in his chosen +profession, he all too frequently lacks the mental poise and the power +of restraining his passions which are the heritage of those peoples who +have been educated for generations.</p> + +<p>In Serbia, as in the other Balkan states, it is the peasants who form +the most substantial and likeable element of the population. The Serbian +peasant is simple, kindly, honest, and hospitable, and, though he could +not be described with strict truthfulness as a hard worker, his wife +invariably is. Although, like most primitive peoples, he is suspicious +of strangers, once he is assured that they are friends there is no +sacrifice that he will not make for their comfort, going cold and +hungry, if necessary, in order that they may have his blanket and his +food. He is one of the very best soldiers in Europe, somewhat careless +in dress, drill and discipline, perhaps, but a good shot, a tireless +marcher, inured to every form of hardship, and invariably cheerful and +uncomplaining. Perhaps it is his instinctive love of soldiering which +makes him so reluctant to lay down the rifle and take up the hoe. He +has<span class="pagenum"><a id="page263" name="page263"></a>Pg 263</span> fought three victorious wars in rapid succession and he has come to +believe that his metier is fighting. In this he is tacitly encouraged by +France, who sees in an armed and ready-to-fight-at-the-drop-of-the-hat +Jugoslavia a counterbalance to Italian ambitions in the Balkans.</p> + +<p>Though there are irresponsible elements in both Jugoslavia and Italy who +talk lightly of war, I am convinced that the great bulk of the +population in both countries realize that such a war would be the height +of shortsightedness and folly. Throughout the Fiume and Dalmatian crises +precipitated by d'Annunzio, Jugoslavia behaved with exemplary patience, +dignity and discretion. Let her future foreign relations continue to be +characterized by such self-control; let her turn her energies to +developing the vast territories to which she has so unexpectedly fallen +heir; let her take immediate steps toward inaugurating systems of +transportation, public instruction and sanitation; let her waste no time +in ridding herself of her jingo politicians and officers—let Jugoslavia +do these things and her future will take care of itself. She is a young +country, remember. Let us be charitable in judging her.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_A_1" id="Footnote_A_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_A_1"><span class="label">[A]</span></a> Portions of this sketch of the Albanians are drawn from an +article which I wrote some years ago for <i>The Independent</i>. E.A.P.</p></div> + + +</div> + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The New Frontiers of Freedom from the +Alps to the Ægean, by Edward Alexander Powell + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM *** + +***** This file should be named 17292-h.htm or 17292-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/7/2/9/17292/ + +Produced by Marilynda Fraser-Cunliffe, Taavi Kalju and the +Online Distributed Proofreaders Europe at +http://dp.rastko.net. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The New Frontiers of Freedom from the Alps to the AEgean + +Author: Edward Alexander Powell + +Release Date: December 12, 2005 [EBook #17292] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM *** + + + + +Produced by Marilynda Fraser-Cunliffe, Taavi Kalju and the +Online Distributed Proofreaders Europe at +http://dp.rastko.net. (This file was made using scans of +public domain works from the University of Michigan Digital +Libraries.) + + + + + + + + +_BY E. ALEXANDER POWELL_ + +THE NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM +THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY +THE LAST FRONTIER +GENTLEMEN ROVERS +THE END OF THE TRAIL +FIGHTING IN FLANDERS +THE ROAD TO GLORY +VIVE LA FRANCE! +ITALY AT WAR + +_CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS_ + + +[Illustration: THE QUEEN OF RUMANIA TELLS MAJOR POWELL THAT SHE ENJOYS +BEING A QUEEN] + + + + +THE NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM + +_FROM THE ALPS TO THE AEGEAN_ + +BY + +E. ALEXANDER POWELL + + +NEW YORK +CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS +1920 + +COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY +CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS + +_Published April, 1920_ + + + +TO A REAL AND LIFELONG FRIEND +MAJOR J. STANLEY MOORE +OF THE DEPARTMENT OF STATE + + + + +AN ACKNOWLEDGMENT + + +Owing to the disturbed conditions which prevailed throughout most of +southeastern Europe during the summer and autumn of 1919, the journey +recorded in the following pages could not have been taken had it not +been for the active cooperation of the Governments through whose +territories we traveled and the assistance afforded by their officials +and by the officers of their armies and navies, to say nothing of the +hospitality shown us by American diplomatic and consular +representatives, relief-workers and others. From the Alps to the AEgean, +in Italy, Dalmatia, Montenegro, Albania, Macedonia, Turkey, Rumania, +Hungary and Serbia we met with universal courtesy and kindness. + +For the innumerable courtesies which we were shown in Italy and the +regions under Italian occupation I am indebted to His Excellency +Francisco Nitti, Prime Minister of Italy, and to former Premier +Orlando, to General Armando Diaz, Commander-in-Chief of the Italian +Armies; to Lieutenant-General Albricci, Minister of War; to Admiral +Thaon di Revel, Minister of Marine; to Vice-Admiral Count Enrice Mulo, +Governor-General of Dalmatia; to Lieutenant-General Piacentini, +Governor-General of Albania, to Lieutenant-General Montanari, commanding +the Italian troops in Dalmatia; to Rear-Admiral Wenceslao Piazza, +commanding the Italian forces in the Curzolane Islands; to +Lieutenant-Colonel Antonio Chiesa, commanding the Italian troops in +Montenegro; to Colonel Aldo Aymonino, Captain Marchese Piero Ricci and +Captain Ernesto Tron of the _Comando Supremo_, the last-named being our +companion and cicerone on a motor-journey of nearly three thousand +miles; to Captain Roggieri of the Royal Italian Navy, Chief of Staff to +the Governor-General of Dalmatia; to Captain Amedeo Acton, commanding +the "_Filiberto_"; to Captain Fausto M. Leva, commanding the +"_Dandolo_"; to Captain Giulio Menin, commanding the "_Puglia_," and to +Captain Filipopo, commanding the "_Ardente_," all of whom entertained us +with the hospitality so characteristic of the Italian Navy; to +Lieutenant Giuseppe Castruccio, our cicerone in Rome and my companion on +dirigible and airplane flights; to Lieutenant Bartolomeo Poggi and +Engineer-Captain Alexander Ceccarelli, respectively commander and chief +engineer of the destroyer "_Sirio_," both of whom, by their unfailing +thoughtfulness and courtesy added immeasurably to the interest and +enjoyment of our voyage down the Adriatic from Fiume to Valona; to +Lieutenant Pellegrini di Tondo, our companion on the long journey by +motor across Albania and Macedonia; to Lieutenant Morpurgo, who showed +us many kindnesses during our stay in Salonika; to Baron San Martino of +the Italian Peace Delegation; to Lieutenant Stroppa-Quaglia, attache of +the Italian Peace Delegation, and, above all else, to those valued +friends, Cavaliere Giuseppe Brambilla, Counselor of the Italian Embassy +in Washington; Major-General Gugliemotti, Military Attache, and +Professor Vittorio Falorsi, formerly Secretary of the Embassy at +Washington, to each of whom I am indebted for countless kindnesses. No +list of those to whom I am indebted would be complete, however, unless +it included the name of my valued and lamented friend, the late Count +V. Macchi di Cellere, Italian Ambassador to the United States, whose +memory I shall never forget. + +I welcome this opportunity of expressing our appreciation of the +hospitality shown us by their Majesties King Ferdinand and Queen Marie +of Rumania, who entertained us at their Castle of Pelesch, and of +acknowledging my indebtedness to His Excellency M. Bratianu, Prime +Minister of Rumania, and to M. Constantinescu, Rumanian Minister of +Commerce. + +I am profoundly appreciative of the honor shown me by His Majesty King +Nicholas of Montenegro, and my grateful thanks are also due to His +Excellency General A. Gvosdenovitch, Aide-de-Camp to the King and former +Minister of Montenegro to the United States. + +For the trouble to which they put themselves in facilitating my visit to +Jugoslavia I am deeply grateful to His Excellency M. Grouitch, Minister +from the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes to the United States, +and to His Excellency M. Vesnitch, the Jugoslav Minister to France. + +From the long list of our own country-people abroad to whom we are +indebted for hospitality and kindness, I wish particularly to thank the +Honorable Thomas Nelson Page, formerly American Ambassador to Italy; the +Honorable Percival Dodge, American Minister to the Kingdom of the Serbs, +Croats and Slovenes; the Honorable Gabriel Bie Ravndal, American +Commissioner and Consul-General in Constantinople; the Honorable Francis +B. Keene, American Consul-General in Rome; Colonel Halsey Yates, U.S.A., +American Military Attache at Bucharest; Lieutenant-Colonel L.G. Ament, +U.S.A., Director of the American Relief Administration in Rumania, who +was our host during our stay in Bucharest, as was Major Carey of the +American Red Cross during our visit in Salonika; Dr. Frances Flood, +Director of the American Red Cross Hospital in Monastir, and Mrs. Mary +Halsey Moran, in charge of American relief work in Constantza, in whose +hospitable homes we found a warm welcome during our stays in those +cities; Reverend and Mrs. Phineas Kennedy of Koritza, Albania; Dr. Henry +King, President of Oberlin College, and Charles R. Crane, Esquire, of +the Commission on Mandates in the Near East; Dr. Fisher, Professor of +Modern History at Robert College, Constantinople; and finally of three +friends in Rome, Mr. Cortese, representative in Italy of the Associated +Press; Dr. Webb, founder and director of the hospital for facial wounds +at Udine; and Nelson Gay, Esquire, the celebrated historian, all three +of whom shamefully neglected their personal affairs in order to give me +suggestions and assistance. + +To all of those named above, and to many others who are not named, I am +deeply grateful. + +E. Alexander Powell. + +Yokohama, Japan, +February, 1920. + + + + +CONTENTS + + +CHAPTER PAGE + + AN ACKNOWLEDGMENT vii + + I ACROSS THE REDEEMED LANDS 1 + + II THE BORDERLAND OF SLAV AND LATIN 56 + + III THE CEMETERY OF FOUR EMPIRES 110 + + IV UNDER THE CROSS AND THE CRESCENT 155 + + V WILL THE SICK MAN OF EUROPE RECOVER? 176 + + VI WHAT THE PEACE-MAKERS HAVE DONE ON THE DANUBE 206 + + VII MAKING A NATION TO ORDER 243 + + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS + + +The Queen of Rumania tells Major Powell that she + enjoys being a Queen _Frontispiece_ + + FACING PAGE + +His first sight of the Terra Irridenta 12 + +The end of the day 20 + +A little mother of the Tyrol 20 + +Italy's new frontier 28 + +This is not Venice, as you might suppose, but Trieste 46 + +At the gates of Fiume 60 + +The inhabitants of Fiume cheering d'Annunzio and his raiders 78 + +His Majesty Nicholas I, King of Montenegro 124 + +Two conspirators of Antivari 130 + +The head men of Ljaskoviki, Albania, waiting to bid Major and + Mrs. Powell farewell 142 + +The ancient walls of Salonika 158 + +Yildiz Kiosk, the favorite palace of Abdul-Hamid and his + successors on the throne of Osman 194 + +The Red Badge of Mercy in the Balkans 208 + +The gypsy who demanded five lei for the privilege of taking + her picture 234 + +A peasant of Old Serbia 234 + +King Ferdinand tells Mrs. Powell his opinion of the fashion in + which the Peace Conference treated Rumania 240 + +The wine-shop which is pointed out to visitors as "the Cradle + of the War" 252 + + + + +THE NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM + + + + +CHAPTER I + +ACROSS THE REDEEMED LANDS + + +It is unwise, generally speaking, to write about countries and peoples +when they are in a state of political flux, for what is true at the +moment of writing may be misleading the next. But the conditions which +prevailed in the lands beyond the Adriatic during the year succeeding +the signing of the Armistice were so extraordinary, so picturesque, so +wholly without parallel in European history, that they form a sort of +epilogue, as it were, to the story of the great conflict. To have +witnessed the dismemberment of an empire which was hoary with antiquity +when the Republic in which we live was yet unborn; to have seen +insignificant states expand almost overnight into powerful nations; to +have seen and talked with peoples who did not know from day to day the +form of government under which they were living, or the name of their +ruler, or the color of their flag; to have seen millions of human +beings transferred from sovereignty to sovereignty like cattle which +have been sold--these are sights the like of which will probably not be +seen again in our times or in those of our children, and, because they +serve to illustrate a chapter of History which is of immense importance, +I have tried to sketch them, in brief, sharp outline, in this book. + +Because I was curious to see for myself how the countrymen of Andreas +Hofer in South Tyrol would accept their enforced Italianization; whether +the Italians of Fiume would obey the dictum of President Wilson that +their city must be Slav; how the Turks of Smyrna and the Bulgarians of +Thrace would welcome Hellenic rule; whether the Croats and Slovenes and +Bosnians and Montenegrins were content to remain pasted in the Jugoslav +stamp-album; and because I wished to travel through these disputed +regions while the conditions and problems thus created were still new, +we set out, my wife and I, at about the time the Peace Conference was +drawing to a close, on a journey, made largely by motor-car and +destroyer, which took us from the Adige to the Vardar and from the +Vardar to the Pruth, along more than five thousand miles of those new +national boundaries--drawn in Paris by a lawyer, a doctor and a college +professor--which have been termed, with undue optimism perhaps, the +frontiers of freedom. + +Some of the things which I shall say in these pages will probably give +offense to those governments which showed us many courtesies. Those who +are privileged to speak for governments are fond of asserting that +_their_ governments have nothing to conceal and that they welcome honest +criticism, but long experience has taught me that when they are told +unpalatable truths governments are usually as sensitive and resentful as +friends. Now it has always seemed to me that a writer owes his first +allegiance to his readers. To misinform them by writing only half-truths +for the sake of retaining the good-will of those written about is as +unethical, to my way of thinking, as it is for a newspaper to suppress +facts which the public is entitled to know in order not to offend its +advertisers. Were I to show my appreciation of the many kindnesses which +we received from governments, sovereigns and officials by refraining +from unfavorable comment on their actions and their policies, this book +would possess about as much intrinsic value as those sumptuous volumes +which are written to the order of certain Latin-American republics, in +which the authors studiously avoid touching on such embarrassing +subjects as revolutions, assassinations, earthquakes, finances, or +fevers for fear of scaring away foreign investors or depreciating the +government securities. + +It is entirely possible that in forming some of my conclusions I was +unconsciously biased by the hospitality and kindness we were shown, for +it is human nature to have a more friendly feeling for the man who +invites you to dinner or sends you a card to his club than for the man +who ignores your existence; it is probable that I not infrequently +placed the wrong interpretation on what I saw and heard, especially in +the Balkans; and, in those cases where I have rashly ventured to indulge +in prophecy, it is more than likely that future events will show that as +a prophet I am not an unqualified success. In spite of these +shortcomings, however, I would like my readers to believe that I have +made a conscientious effort to place before them, in the following +pages, a plain and unprejudiced account of how the essays in map-making +of the lawyer, the doctor and the college professor in Paris have +affected the peoples, problems and politics of that vast region which +stretches from the Alps to the AEgean. + +The Queen of the Adriatic never looked more radiantly beautiful than on +the July morning when, from the landing-stage in front of the Danieli, +we boarded the _vapore_ which, after an hour's steaming up the teeming +Guidecca and across the outlying lagoons, set us down at the road-head, +on the mainland, where young Captain Tron, of the Comando Supremo, was +awaiting us with a big gray staff-car. Captain Tron, who had been born +on the Riviera and spoke English like an Oxonian, had been aide-de-camp +to the Prince of Wales during that young gentleman's prolonged stay on +the Italian front. He was selected by the Italian High Command to +accompany us, I imagine, because of his ability to give intelligent +answers to every conceivable sort of question, his tact, and his +unfailing discretion. His chief weakness was his proclivity for +road-burning, in which he was enthusiastically abetted by our Sicilian +chauffeur, who, before attaining to the dignity of driving a staff-car, +had spent an apprenticeship of two years in piloting ammunition-laden +_camions_ over the narrow and perilous roads which led to the positions +held by the Alpini amid the higher peaks, during which he learned to +save his tires and his brake-linings by taking on two wheels instead of +four the hairpin mountain turns. Now I am perfectly willing to travel as +fast as any one, if necessity demands it, but to tear through a region +as beautiful as Venetia at sixty miles an hour, with the incomparable +landscape whirling past in a confused blur, like a motion-picture film +which is being run too fast because the operator is in a hurry to get +home, seems to me as unintelligent as it is unnecessary. Like all +Italian drivers, moreover, our chauffeur insisted on keeping his cut-out +wide open, thereby producing a racket like a machine-gun, which, though +it gave warning of our approach when we were still a mile away, made any +attempt at conversation, save by shouting, out of the question. + +Because I wished to follow Italy's new frontiers from their very +beginning, at that point where the boundaries of Italy, Austria and +Switzerland meet near the Stelvio Pass, our course from Venice lay +northwestward, across the dusty plains of Venetia, shimmering in the +summer heat, the low, pleasant-looking villas of white or pink or +sometimes pale blue stucco, set far back in blazing gardens, peering +coyly out at us from between the ranks of stately cypresses which lined +the highway, like daintily-gowned girls seeking an excuse for a +flirtation. Dotting the Venetian plain are many quaint and charming +towns of whose existence the tourist, traveling by train, never dreams, +their massive walls, sometimes defended by moats and draw-bridges, +bearing mute witness to this region's stormy and romantic past. Towering +above the red-tiled roofs of each of these Venetian plain-towns is its +slender campanile, and, as each campanile is of distinctive design, it +serves as a landmark by which the town can be identified from afar. +Through the narrow, cobble-paved streets of Vicenza we swept, between +rows of shops opening into cool, dim, vaulted porticoes, where the +townspeople can lounge and stroll and gossip without exposing themselves +to rain or sun; through Rovereto, noted for its silk-culture and for its +old, old houses, superb examples of the domestic architecture of the +Middle Ages, with faded frescoes on their quaint facades; and so up the +rather monotonous and uninteresting valley of the Adige until, just as +the sun was sinking behind the Adamello, whose snowy flanks were bathed +in the rosy _Alpenglow_, we came roaring into Trent, the capital and +center of the Trentino, which, together with Trieste and its adjacent +territory, composed the regions commonly referred to by Italians before +the war as _Italia Irredenta_--Unredeemed Italy. + +Rooms had been reserved for us at the Hotel Trento, a famous tourist +hostelry in pre-war days, which had been used as headquarters by the +field-marshal commanding the Austrian forces in the Trentino, signs of +its military occupation being visible in the scratched wood-work and +ruined upholstery. The spurs of the Austrian staff officers on duty in +Trent, as Major Rupert Hughes once remarked of the American staff +officers on duty in Washington, must have been dripping with furniture +polish. + +Trent--or Trento, as its new owners call it--is a place of some 30,000 +inhabitants, built on both banks of the Adige, in the center of a great +bowl-shaped valley which is completely hemmed in by towering mountain +walls. In the church of Santa Maria Maggiore the celebrated Council of +Trent sat in the middle of the sixteenth century for nearly a decade. On +the eastern side of the town rises the imposing Castello del Buon +Consiglio, once the residence of the Prince-Bishops but now a barracks +for Italian soldiery. + +No one who knows Trent can question the justice of Italy's claims to the +city and to the rich valleys surrounding it, for the history, the +traditions, the language, the architecture and the art of this region +are as characteristically Italian as though it had never been outside +the confines of the kingdom. The system of mild and fertile Alpine +valleys which compose the so-called Trentino have an area of about 4,000 +square miles and support a population of 380,000 inhabitants, of whom +375,000, according to a census made by the Austrians themselves, are +Italian. An enclave between Lombardy and Venetia, a rough triangle with +its southern apex at the head of the Lake of Garda, the Trentino, +originally settled by Italian colonists who went forth as early as the +time of the Roman Republic, was for centuries an independent Italian +prince-bishopric, being arbitrarily annexed to Austria upon the fall of +Napoleon. In spite of the tyrannical and oppressive measures pursued by +the Austrian authorities in their attempts to stamp out the affection of +the Trentini for their Italian motherland, in spite of the systematic +attempts to Germanicize the region, in spite of the fact that it was an +offense punishable by imprisonment to wear the Italian colors, to sing +the Italian national hymn, or to have certain Italian books in their +possession, the poor peasants of these mountain valleys remained +unswervingly loyal to Italy throughout a century of persecution. Little +did the thousands of American and British tourists who were wont to make +of the Trentino a summer playground, climbing its mountains, fishing in +its rivers, motoring over its superb highways, stopping in its great +hotels, realize the silent but desperate struggle which was in progress +between this handful of Italian exiles and the empire of the Hapsburgs. + +The attitude of the Austrian authorities toward their unwilling subjects +of the Trentino was characterized by a vindictiveness as savage as it +was shortsighted. Like the Germans in Alsace, they made the mistake of +thinking that they could secure the loyalty of the people by awing and +terrorizing them, whereas these methods had the effect of hardening the +determination of the Trentini to rid themselves of Austrian rule. Caesare +Battisti was deputy from Trent to the parliament in Vienna. When war was +declared he escaped from Austria and enlisted in the Italian army, +precisely as hundreds of American colonists joined the Continental Army +upon the outbreak of the Revolution. During the first Austrian offensive +he was captured and sentenced to death, being executed while still +suffering from his wounds. The fact that the rope parted twice beneath +his weight added the final touch to the brutality which marked every +stage of the proceeding. The execution of Battista provided a striking +object-lesson for the inhabitants of the Trentino and of Italy--but not +the sort of object-lesson which the Austrians had intended. Instead of +terrifying them, it but fired them in their determination to end that +sort of thing forever. From Lombardy to Sicily Battista was acclaimed a +hero and a martyr; photographs of him on his way to execution--an erect +and dignified figure, a dramatic contrast to the shambling, sullen-faced +soldiery who surrounded him--were displayed in every shop-window in the +kingdom; all over Italy streets and parks and schools were named to +perpetuate his memory. + +Had there been in my mind a shadow of doubt as to the justice of Italy's +annexation of the Trentino, it would have been dissipated when, after +dinner, we stood on the balcony of the hotel in the moonlight, looking +down on the great crowd which filled to overflowing the brilliantly +lighted piazza. A military band was playing _Garibaldi's Hymn_ and the +people stood in silence, as in a church, the faces of many of them wet +with tears, while the familiar strains, forbidden by the Austrian under +penalty of imprisonment, rose triumphantly on the evening air to be +echoed by the encircling mountains. At last the exiles had come home. +And from his marble pedestal, high above the multitude, the great statue +of Dante looked serenely out across the valleys and the mountains which +are "unredeemed" no longer. + +[Illustration: HIS FIRST SIGHT OF THE TERRA IRRIDENTA + +King Victor Emanuel arriving at Trieste on a destroyer after its +occupation by the Italians] + +Though Italy's original claims in this region, as made at the +beginning of the war, included only the so-called Trentino (by which is +generally meant those Italian-speaking districts which used to belong to +the bishopric of Trent) together with those parts of South Tyrol which +are in population overwhelmingly Italian, she has since demanded, and by +the Peace Conference has been awarded, the territory known as the upper +Adige, which comprises all the districts lying within the basin of the +Adige and of its tributary, the Isarco, including the cities of Botzen +and Meran. By the annexation of this region Italy has pushed her +frontier as far north as the Brenner, thereby bringing within her +borders upwards of 180,000 German-speaking Tyrolese who have never been +Italian in any sense and who bitterly resent being transferred, without +their consent and without a plebiscite, to Italian rule. + +The Italians defend their annexation of the Upper Adige by asserting +that Italy's true northern boundary, in the words of Eugene de +Beauharnais, written, when Viceroy of Italy, to his stepfather, +Napoleon, "is that traced by Nature on the summits of the mountains, +where the waters that flow into the Black Sea are divided from those +that flow into the Adriatic." Viewed from a purely geographical +standpoint, Italy's contention that the great semi-circular barrier of +the Alps forms a natural and clearly defined frontier, separating her by +a clean-cut line from the countries to the north, is unquestionably a +sound one. Any one who has entered Italy from the north must have +instinctively felt, as he reached the summit of this mighty mountain +wall and looked down on the warm and fertile slopes sweeping southward +to the plains, "Here Italy begins." + +Italy further justifies her annexation of the German-speaking Upper +Adige on the ground of national security. She must, she insists, possess +henceforward a strong and easily defended northern frontier. She is +tired of crouching in the valleys while her enemies dominate her from +the mountain-tops. Nor do I blame her. Her whole history is punctuated +by raids and invasions launched from these northern heights. But the new +frontier, in the words of former Premier Orlando, "can be defended by a +handful of men, while therefore the defense of the Trentino salient +required half the Italian forces, the other half being constantly +threatened with envelopment." + +As I have already pointed out, the annexation of the Upper Adige means +the passing of 180,000 German-speaking Austrians under Italian +sovereignty, including the cities of Botzen and Meran; the ancient +centers of German-Alpine culture, Brixen and Sterzing; of Schloss Tyrol, +which gives the whole country its name; and, above all, of the Parsier +valley, the home of Andreas Hofer, whose life and living memory provide +the same inspiration for the Germans of Tyrol that the exploits and +traditions of Garibaldi do for the Italians. + +That Italy is not insensible to the perils of bringing within her +borders a _bloc_ of people who are not and never will be Italian, is +clearly shown by the following extract from an Italian official +publication: + +"In claiming the Upper Adige, Italy does not forget that the highest +valleys are inhabited by 180,000 Germans, a residuum from the +immigration in the Middle Ages. It is not a problem to be taken +light-heartedly, but it is impossible for Italy to limit herself only to +the Trentino, as that would not give her a satisfactory military +frontier. From that point of view, the basin of Bolzano (Bozen) is as +strictly necessary to Italy as the Rhine is to France." + +No one has been more zealous in the cause of Italy than I have been; no +one has been more whole-heartedly with the Italians in their splendid +efforts to recover the lands to which they are justly entitled; no one +more thoroughly realizes the agonies of apprehension which Italy has +suffered from the insecurity of her northern borders, or has been more +keenly alive to the grim but silent struggle which has been waged +between her statesmen and her soldiers as to whether the broad +statesmanship which aims at international good-feeling and abstract +justice, or the narrower and more selfish policy dictated by military +necessity, should govern the delimitation of her new frontiers. But, +because I am a friend of Italy, and because I wish her well, I view with +grave misgivings the wisdom of thus creating, within her own borders, a +new _terra irredenta_; I question the quality of statesmanship which +insists on including within the Italian body politic an alien and +irreconcilable minority which will probably always be a latent source of +trouble, one which may, as the result of some unforseen irritation, +break into an open sore. It would seem to me that Italy, in annexing the +Upper Adige, is storing up for herself precisely the same troubles which +Austria did when she held against their will the Italians of the +Trentino, or as Germany did when, in order to give herself a strategic +frontier, she annexed Alsace and Lorraine. When Italy puts forward the +argument that she must hold everything up to the Brenner because of her +fear of invasion by the puny and bankrupt little state which is all that +is left of the Austrian Empire, she is but weakening her case. Her +soundest excuse for the annexation of this region lies in her fear that +a reconstituted and revengeful Germany might some day use the Tyrol as a +gateway through which to launch new armies of invasion and conquest. +But, no matter what her friends may think of the wisdom or justice of +Italy's course, her annexation of the Upper Adige is a _fait accompli_ +which is not likely to be undone. Whether it will prove an act of wisdom +or of shortsightedness only the future can tell. + +The transition from the Italian Trentino to the German Tyrol begins a +few miles south of Bozen. Perhaps "occurs" would be a more descriptive +word, for the change from the Latin to the Teutonic, instead of being +gradual, as one would expect, is almost startling in its abruptness. In +the space of a single mile or so the language of the inhabitants changes +from the liquid accents of the Latin to the deep-throated gutturals of +the German; the road signs and those on the shops are now printed in +quaint German script; _via_ becomes _weg_, _strada_ becomes _strasse_, +instead of responding to your salutation with a smiling "_Bon giorno_" +the peasants give you a solemn "_Guten morgen_." Even the architecture +changes, the slender, four-square campaniles surmounted by bulging +Byzantine domes, so characteristic of the Trentino, giving place to +pointed steeples faced with colored slates or tiles. On the German side +the towns are better kept, the houses better built, the streets wider +and cleaner than in the Italian districts. Instead of the low, +white-walled, red-tiled dwellings so characteristic of Italy, the houses +begin to assume the aspect of Alpine chalets, with carved wooden +balconies and steep-pitched roofs to prevent the settling of the winter +snows. The plastered facades of many of the houses are decorated with +gaudily colored frescoes, nearly always of Biblical characters or +scenes, so that in a score of miles the traveler has had the whole story +of the Scriptures spread before him. They are a deeply religious people, +these Tyrolean peasants, as is evidenced not only by the many handsome +churches and the character of the wall-paintings on the houses, but by +the amazing frequency of the wayside shrines, most of which consist of +representations of various phases of the Crucifixion, usually carved and +painted with a most harrowing fidelity of detail. Occasionally we +encountered groups of peasants wearing the picturesque velvet jackets, +tight knee-breeches, heavy woolen stockings and beribboned hats which +one usually associates with the Tyrolean yodelers who still inflict +themselves on vaudeville audiences in the United States. As we sped +northward the landscape changed with the inhabitants, the sunny Italian +countryside, ablaze with flowers and green with vineyards, giving way to +solemn forests, gloomy defiles, and crags surmounted by grim, gray +castles which reminded me of the stage-settings for "Tannhaeuser" and +"Lohengrin." + +Seen from the summit of the Mendel Pass, the road from Trent to Bozen +looks like a lariat thrown carelessly upon the ground. It climbs +laboriously upward, through splendid evergreen forests, in countless +curves and spirals, loiters for a few-score yards beside the margin of a +tiny crystal lake, and then, refreshed, plunges downward, in a series of +steep white zigzags, to meet the Isarco, in whose company it enters +Bozen. Because the car, like ourselves, was thirsty, we stopped at the +summit of the pass at the tiny hamlet of Madonna di Campiglio--Our Lady +of the Fields--for water and for tea. Should you have occasion to go +that way, I hope that you will take time to stop at the unpretentious +little Hotel Neumann. It is the sort of Tyrolean inn which had, I +supposed, gone out of existence with the war. The innkeeper, a jovial, +white-whiskered fellow, such as one rarely finds off the musical comedy +stage, served us with tea--with rum in it--and hot bread with honey, and +heaping dishes of small wild strawberries, and those pastries which the +Viennese used to make in such perfection. There were five of us, +including the chauffeur and the orderly, and for the food which we +consumed I think that the innkeeper charged the equivalent of a dollar. +But, as he explained apologetically, the war had raised prices terribly. +We were the first visitors, it seemed, barring Austrians and a few +Italian officers, who had visited his inn in nearly five years. Both of +his sons had been killed in the war, he told us, fighting bravely with +their Jaeger battalion. The widow of one of his sons--I saw her; a +sweet-faced Austrian girl--with her child, had come to live with him, he +said. Yes, he was an old man, both of his boys were dead, his little +business had been wrecked, the old Emperor Franz-Joseph--yes, we could +see his picture over the fireplace within--had gone and the new Emperor +Karl was in exile, in Switzerland, life had heard; even the Empire in +which he had lived, boy and man, for seventy-odd years, had disappeared; +the whole world was, indeed, turned upside down--but, Heaven be praised, +he had a little grandson who would grow up to carry the business on. + +[Illustration: A LITTLE MOTHER OF THE TYROL + +We gave her some candy: it was the first taste of sugar that she had had +in four years] + +[Illustration: THE END OF THE DAY + +A Tyrolean peasant woman returning from the fields] + +"How do you feel," I asked the old man, "about Italian rule?" + +"They are not our own people," he answered slowly. "Their language is +not our language and their ways are not our ways. But they are not an +unkind nor an unjust people and I think that they mean to treat us +fairly and well. Austria is very poor, I hear, and could do nothing for +us if she would. But Italy is young and strong and rich and the officers +who have stopped here tell me that she is prepared to do much to help +us. Who knows? Perhaps it is all for the best." + +Immediately beyond Madonna di Campiglio the highway begins its descent +from the pass in a series of appallingly sharp turns. Hardly had we +settled ourselves in the tonneau before the Sicilian, impatient to be +gone, stepped on the accelerator and the big Lancia, flinging itself +over the brow of the hill, plunged headlong for the first of these +hairpin turns. "Slow up!" I shouted. "Slow up or you'll have us over the +edge!" As the driver's only response to my command was to grin at us +reassuringly over his shoulder, I looked about for a soft place to land. +But there was only rock-plated highway whizzing past and on the outside +the road dropped sheer away into nothingness. We took the first turn +with the near-side wheels in the gutter, the off-side wheels on the +bank, and the car tilted at an angle of forty-five degrees. The second +bend we navigated at an angle of sixty degrees, the off-side wheels on +the bank, the near-side wheels pawing thin air. Had there been another +bend immediately following we should have accomplished it upside down. +Fortunately there were no more for the moment, but there remained the +village street of Cles. We pounced upon it like a tiger on its prey. +Shrilling, roaring and honking, we swooped through the ancient town, +zigzagging from curb to curb. The great-great-grandam of the village was +tottering across the street when the blast of the Lancia's siren pierced +the deafness of a century and she sprang for the sidewalk with the +agility of a young gazelle. We missed her by half an inch, but at the +next corner we had better luck and killed a chicken. + +Meran--the Italians have changed its official name to Merano, just as +they have changed Trent to Trento, and Bozen to Bolzano--has always +appealed to me as one of the most charming and restful little towns in +Europe. The last time I had been there, before the war-cloud darkened +the land, its streets were lined with powerful touring cars bearing the +license-plates of half the countries in Europe, bands played in the +parks, the shady promenade beside the river was crowded with +pleasure-seekers, and its great tourist hostelries--there were said to +be upwards of 150 hotels and _pensions_ in the town--were gay with +laughter and music. But this time all was changed. Most of the large +hotels were closed, the streets were deserted, the place was as dismal +as a cemetery. It reminded me of a beautiful house which has been closed +because of its owner's financial reverses, the servants discharged, the +windows boarded up, the furniture swathed in linen covers, the carpets +and hangings packed away in mothballs, and the gardens overrun with +weeds. At the Hotel Savoy, where rooms had been reserved for us, it was +necessary, in pre-war days, to wire for accommodations a fortnight in +advance of your arrival, and even then you were not always able to get +rooms. Yet we were the only visitors, barring a handful of Italian +commercial travelers and the Italian governor-general and his staff. The +proprietor, an Austrian, told me that in the four years of war he had +lost $300,000, and that he, like his colleagues, was running his hotel +on borrowed money. Of the pre-war visitors to Meran, eighty per cent. +had been Germans, he told me, adding that he could see no prospect of +the town's regaining its former prosperity until Germany is on her +financial feet again. Personally, I think that he and the other +hoteliers and business men with whom I talked in Meran were rather more +pessimistic than the situation warranted, for, if Italy will have the +foresight to do for these new playgrounds of hers in the Alps even a +fraction of what she has done for her resorts on the Riviera, and in +Sicily, and along the Neapolitan littoral, if she will advertise and +encourage and assist them, if she will maintain their superb roads and +improve their railway communications, then I believe that a few years, a +very few, will see them thronged by even greater crowds of visitors than +before the war. And the fact that in the future there will be more +American, English, French and Italian visitors, and fewer Germans, will +make South Tyrol a far pleasanter place to travel in. + +The Italians are fully alive to the gravity of the problems which +confront them in attempting to assimilate a body of people, as +courageous, as sturdily independent, and as tenacious of their +traditional independence as these Tyrolean mountaineers--descendants of +those peasants, remember, who, led by Andreas Hofer, successfully defied +the dictates of Napoleon. Though I think that she is going about the +business of assimilating these unwilling subjects with tact and common +sense, I do not envy Italy her task. Generally speaking, the sympathy of +the world is always with a weak people as opposed to a strong one, as +England discovered when she attempted to impose her rule upon the Boers. +Once let the Italian administration of the Upper Adige permit itself to +be provoked into undue harshness (and there will be ample provocation; +be certain of that); once let an impatient and over-zealous +governor-general attempt to bend these stubborn mountaineers too +abruptly to his will; let the local Italian officials provide the +slightest excuse for charges of injustice or oppression, and Italy will +have on her hands in Tyrol far graver troubles than those brought on by +her adventure in Tripolitania. + +Though the Government has announced that Italian must become the +official language of the newly acquired region, and that used in its +schools, no attempt will be made to root out the German tongue or to +tamper with the local usages and customs. The upper valleys, where +German is spoken, will not, however, enjoy any form of local autonomy +which would tend to set their inhabitants apart from those of the lower +valleys, for it is realized that such differential treatment would only +serve to retard the process of unification. All of the new districts, +German and Italian-speaking alike, will be included in the new province +of Trent. It is entirely probable that Italy's German-speaking subjects +of the present generation will prove, if not actually irreconcilable, at +least mistrustful and resentful, but, by adhering to a policy of +patience, sympathy, generosity and tact, I can see no reason why the +next generation of these mountaineers should not prove as loyal Italians +as though their fathers had been born under the cross of the House of +Savoy instead of under the double-eagle of the Hapsburgs. + +We crossed the Line of the Armistice into Austria an hour or so beyond +Meran, the road being barred at this point by a swinging beam, made +from the trunk of a tree, which could be swung aside to permit the +passage of vehicles, like the bar of an old-fashioned country toll-gate. +Close by was a rude shelter, built of logs, which provided sleeping +quarters for the half-company of infantry engaged in guarding the pass. +One has only to cross the new frontier to understand why Italy was so +desperately insistent on a strategic rectification of her northern +boundary, for whereas, before the war, the frontier ran through the +valleys, leaving the Austrians atop the mountain wall, it is now the +Italians who are astride the wall, with the Austrians in the valleys +below. + +[Illustration: ITALY'S NEW FRONTIER + +A sharp turn on the highroad over the Brenner Pass] + +No sooner had we crossed the Line of the Armistice than we noticed an +abrupt change in the attitude of the population. Even in the +German-speaking districts of the Trentino the inhabitants with whom we +had come in contact had been courteous and respectful, though whether +this was because of, or in spite of, the fact that we were traveling in +a military car, accompanied by a staff-officer, I do not know. Now that +we were actually in Austria, however, this atmosphere of seeming +friendliness entirely disappeared, the men staring insolently at us +from under scowling brows, while the women and children, who had less to +fear and consequently were bolder in expressing their feelings, +frequently shouted uncomplimentary epithets at us or shook their fists +as we passed. + +Under the terms of the Armistice, Innsbruck, the capital of Tyrol, was +temporarily occupied by the Italians, who sent into the city a +comparatively small force, consisting in the main of Alpini and +Bersaglieri. Innsbruck was one of the proudest cities of the Austrian +Empire, its inhabitants being noted for their loyalty to the Hapsburgs, +yet I did not observe the slightest sign of resentment toward the +Italian soldiers, who strolled the streets and made purchases in the +shops as unconcernedly as though they were in Milan or Rome. The +Italians, on their part, showed the most marked consideration for the +sensibilities of the population, displaying none of the hatred and +contempt for their former enemies which characterized the French armies +of occupation on the Rhine. + +We found that rooms had been reserved for us at the Tyroler Hof, before +the war one of the famous tourist hostelries of Europe, half of which +had been taken over by the Italian general commanding in the Innsbruck +district and his staff. Food was desperately scarce in Innsbruck when we +were there and, had it not been for the courtesy of the Italian +commander in sending us in dishes from his mess, we would have had great +difficulty in getting enough to eat. A typical dinner at the Tyroler Hof +in the summer of 1919 consisted of a mud-colored, nauseous-looking +liquid which was by courtesy called soup, a piece of fish perhaps four +times the size of a postage-stamp, a stew which was alleged to consist +of rabbit and vegetables but which, from its taste and appearance, might +contain almost anything, a salad made of beets or watercress, but +without oil, and for dessert a dish of wild berries, which are abundant +in parts of Tyrol. There was an extra charge for a small cup of black +coffee, so-called, which was made, I imagine, from acorns. This, of +course, was at the best and highest-priced hotels in Innsbruck; at the +smaller hotels the food was correspondingly scarcer and poorer. + +Though the inhabitants of the rural districts appeared to be moderately +well fed, a majority of the people of Innsbruck were manifestly in +urgent need of food. Some of them, indeed, were in a truly pitiable +condition, with emaciated bodies, sunken cheeks, unhealthy complexions, +and shabby, badly worn clothes. The meager displays in the shop-windows +were a pathetic contrast to variety and abundance which characterized +them in ante-bellum days, the only articles displayed in any profusion +being picture-postcards, objects carved from wood and similar souvenirs. +The windows of the confectionery and bake-shops were particularly +noticeable for the paucity of their contents. I was induced to enter one +of them by a brave window display of hand-decorated candy boxes, but, +upon investigation, it proved that the boxes were empty and that the +shop had had no candy for four years. The prices of necessities, such as +food and clothing, were fantastic (I saw advertisements of stout, +all-leather boots for rent to responsible persons by the day or week), +but articles of a purely luxurious character could be had for almost +anything one was willing to offer. In one shop I was shown German +field-glasses of high magnification and the finest makes for ten and +fifteen dollars a pair. The local jewelers were driving a brisk trade +with the Italian soldiers, who were lavish purchasers of Austrian war +medals and decorations. Captain Tron bought an Iron Cross of the second +class for the equivalent of thirty cents. + +We left Innsbruck in the early morning with the intention of spending +that night at Cortina d'Ampezzo, but, owing to our unfamiliarity with +the roads and to delays due to tire trouble, nightfall found us lost in +the Dolomites. For mile after mile we pushed on through the darkness +along the narrow, slippery mountain roads, searching for a shelter in +which to pass the night. Occasionally the twin beams from our lamps +would illumine a building beside the road and we, chilled and hungry, +would exclaim "A house at last!" only to find, upon drawing nearer, +that, though it had evidently been once a habitation, it was now but a +shattered, blackened shell, a grim testimonial to the accuracy of +Austrian and Italian gunners. It was late in the evening and bitterly +cold, before, rounding a shoulder of the mountain up whose steep +gradients the car seemed to have been panting for ages, we saw in the +distance the welcome lights of the hamlet of Santa Lucia. + +I do not think that the public has the slightest conception of the +widespread destruction and misery wrought by the war in these Alpine +regions. In nearly a hundred miles of motoring in the Cadore, formerly +one of the most delightful summer playgrounds in all Europe, we did not +pass a single building with a whole roof or an unshattered wall. The +hospitable wayside inns, the quaint villages, the picturesque peasant +cottages which the tourist in this region knew and loved are but +blackened ruins now. And the people are gone too--refugees, no doubt, in +the camps which the Government has erected for them near the larger +towns. One no longer hears the tinkle of cow-bells on the mountain +slopes, peasants no longer wave a friendly greeting from their doors: it +is a stricken and deserted land. But Cortina d'Ampezzo, which is the +_cheflieu_ of the Cadore, though still showing many traces of the +shell-storms which it has survived, was quickening into life. The big +tourist hotels at either end of the town, behind which the Italians +emplaced their heavy guns, were being refurnished in anticipation of the +resumption of summer travel and the little shops where they sell +souvenirs were reopening, one by one. But the losses suffered by the +inhabitants of these Alpine valleys, desperately serious as they are to +them, are, after all, but insignificant when compared with the enormous +havoc wrought by the armies in the thickly settled Friuli and on the +rich Venetian plains. Every one knows, presumably, that Italy had to +draw more heavily upon her resources than any other country among the +Allies _(did you know that she spent in the war more than four-fifths of +her total national wealth?_) and that she is bowed down under an +enormous load of taxation and a staggering burden of debt. But what has +been largely overlooked is that she is faced by the necessity of +rebuilding a vast devastated area, in which the conditions are quite as +serious, the need of assistance fully as urgent, as in the devastated +regions of Belgium and France. + +Probably you were not aware that a territory of some three and a half +million acres, occupied by nearly a million and a half people, was +overrun by the Austrians. More than one-half of Venetia is comprised in +that region lying east of the Piave where the wave of Hunnish invasion +broke with its greatest fury. The whole of Udine and Belluno, and parts +of Treviso, Vicenza and Venice suffered the penalty of standing in the +path of the Hun. They were prosperous provinces, agriculturally and +industrially, but now both industry and agriculture are almost at a +standstill, for their factories have been burned, their machinery +wrecked or stolen, their livestock driven off and their vineyards +destroyed. The damage done is estimated at 500 million dollars. It is +unnecessary for me to emphasize the seriousness of the problem which +thus confronts the Italian Government. Not only must it provide food and +shelter for the homeless--a problem which it has solved by the erection +of great numbers of wooden huts somewhat similar to the barracks at the +American cantonments--but a great amount of livestock and machinery must +be supplied before industry can be resumed. At one period there was such +desperate need of fuel that even the olive trees, one of the region's +chief sources of revenue, were sacrificed. The Italians have set about +the task of regeneration with an energy that discouragement cannot +check. But the undertaking is more than Italy can accomplish unaided, +for the resources of her other provinces are seriously depleted. We are +fond of talking of the debt we owe to Italy, not merely for her +sacrifices in the war, but for all that she has given us in art and +music and literature. Now is the time to show our gratitude. + +From Cortina, which is Italian now, we swung toward the north again, +re-crossed the Line of the Armistice at Tarvis, and, just as night was +falling, came tearing into Villach, which, like Innsbruck, was occupied, +under the terms of the Armistice, by Italian troops. We had great +difficulty in obtaining rooms in Villach, not because there were no +rooms but because we were accompanied by an Italian officer and were +traveling in an Italian car. The proprietors of five hotels, upon seeing +Captain Tron's uniform, curtly declared that every room was occupied. It +was nearly midnight before we succeeded in finding shelter for the +night, and this was obtained only when I made it amply clear to the +Austrian proprietor of the only remaining hotel in the town that we were +not Italians but Americans. The unpleasant impression produced by the +coolness of our reception in Villach was materially increased the +following morning, when Captain Tron greeted us with the news that all +of our luggage, which we had left on the car, had been stolen. It +seemed that thieves had broken into the courtyard of the barracks, where +the car had been locked up for the night, and, in spite of the fact that +the chauffeur was asleep in the tonneau, had stripped it of everything, +including the spare tires. I learned afterwards that robberies of this +sort had become so common since the war as scarcely to provoke comment, +portions of Austria being terrorized by gangs of demobilized soldiers +who, taking advantage of the complete demoralization of the machinery of +government, robbed farmhouses and plundered travelers at will. It is +much the same form of lawlessness, I imagine, which manifested itself +immediately after the close of the Napoleonic Wars, when bands of +discharged soldiers sought in robbery the excitement and booty which +they had formerly found under the eagles. Though the local police +authorities attempted to condone the robbery on the ground that it was +due to the appalling poverty of the population, this excuse did not +reconcile my wife to the loss of her entire wardrobe. As she remarked +vindictively, she felt certain that the inhabitants of Villach were +called Villains. + +I wished to visit Klagenfurt, the ancient capital of Carinthia, which is +about twenty miles beyond Villach, because at that time the town, which +is a railway junction of considerable strategic and commercial +importance, threatened to provide the cause for an open break between +the Jugoslavs and the Italians. Though the Italians did not demand the +town for themselves, they had vigorously insisted that, instead of being +awarded to Jugoslavia, it should remain Austrian, for, with the triangle +of which Klagenfurt is the center in the possession of the Jugoslavs, +they would have driven a wedge between Italy and Austria and would have +had under their control the immensely important junction-point where the +main trunk line from Venice to Vienna is joined by the line coming up +from Fiume and Trieste. The Jugoslavs, recognizing that the possession +of Klagenfurt would give them virtual control of the principal railway +entering Austria from the south, and that such control would probably +enable them to divert much of Austria's traffic from the Italian ports +of Venice and Trieste to their own port of Fiume, which they +confidently expected would be awarded them by the Peace Conference, lost +no time in occupying the town with a considerable force of troops. They +further justified this occupation by asserting that Jugoslavia was +entitled to Carinthia on ethnological grounds and that the inhabitants +of Klagenfurt were clamoring for Jugoslav rule. In view of these +developments, I had expected to find Jugoslav soldiery in the town, but +I had not expected to be challenged, a mile or so outside the town, by a +sentry who was, judging from his appearance, straight from a _comitadji_ +band in the Macedonian mountains. He was a sullen-faced fellow wearing a +fur cap and a nondescript uniform, with an assortment of weapons thrust +in his belt, according to the custom of the Balkan guerrillas, and with +two bandoliers, stuffed with cartridges, slung across his chest. He was +as incongruous a figure in that pleasant German countryside as one of +Pancho Villa's bandits would have been in the Connecticut Valley. And +Klagenfurt, which is a well-built, well-paved, thoroughly modern +Austrian town, was occupied by several hundred of his fellows, brought +from somewhere in the Balkans, I should imagine, for the express +purpose of aweing the population. It was perfectly apparent that the +inhabitants, far from welcoming these fierce-looking fighters as +brother-Slavs and friends, were only too anxious to have them take their +departure, having about as much in common with them, in appearance, +manners and speech, as a New Englander has with an Apache Indian. So +great was the tension existing in Klagenfurt that a commission had been +sent by the Peace Conference to study the question on the spot, its +members communicating with the Supreme Council in Paris by means of +American couriers, slim young fellows in khaki who wore on their arms +the blue brassard, embroidered with the scales of justice, which was the +badge of messengers employed by the Peace Commission. + +A few miles outside of Klagenfurt my attention was attracted by an iron +paling, in a field beside the road, enclosing a gigantic chair carved +from stone. My curiosity aroused, I stopped the car to examine it. From +a faded inscription attached to the gate I learned that this was the +crowning chair of the Dukes of Carinthia, in which the ancient rulers of +this region had sat to be crowned. There it stands in a field beside +the highway, neglected and forgotten, a curious link with a picturesque +and far-distant past. + +Our route from Klagenfurt led back through Villach to Tarvis and thence +over the Predil Pass to the Friuli plain and Udine, a journey which we +expected to accomplish in a single day; but there were delays in +re-crossing the Line of the Armistice and other and more serious delays +in the mountains, caused by torrential rains which had in places washed +out the road, so that it was already nightfall when, emerging from the +gloomy defile of the Predil Pass, we saw before us the twinkling lights +of the Alpini cantonment at Caporetto, that mountain hamlet of black +memories where, in the summer of 1917, the Austro-German armies, aided +by bad Italian generalship and Italian treachery, smashed through the +Italian lines and forced them back in a headlong retreat which was +checked only by the heroic stand on the Piave. The Caporetto disaster +would have broken the hearts and annihilated the resistance of a less +courageous people than the Italians. Yet the Italian army, shattered and +disorganized as it was, stopped the triumphant progress of the +invaders; stopped it almost without artillery or ammunition, for +hundreds of guns had been abandoned during the retreat; stopped it with +the bodies of Italy's youth, the boys fresh from the training-camps, the +class of 1919, called to the colors two years before their time! They +stopped that victorious rush upon the line of the Piave, a broad, +shallow stream meandering through a flat plain with never a height to +command the enemy's positions, never a physical feature of the terrain +to satisfy the requirements of strategy. Not only was the line of the +Piave held by the Italians against the advice of their Allies, but it +was held in defiance of all the lessons taught by Italian history, for +that the Piave could not be successfully defended has been the judgment +of every military leader since first the barbarians began to sweep down +from the Alps to lay waste the rich Venetian plain. The Italians made +their heroic stand, moreover, without any help from their Allies. That +help came later, it is true, but only after the stand had been made. You +doubt this? Then read this extract from the report of General the Earl +of Caven, who commanded the Allied troops sent to the aid of the +Italians: + +"In 1917, in the terrible days which followed the disaster at Caporetto, +I saw, just after my arrival at Venice, the Italian army in full +retreat, and I became convinced that a recovery was impossible before +the arrival of sufficient reenforcement from France and England. But I +was deceived, for shortly afterward I saw the Italian army, which had +seemed to be in the advanced stages of an utter rout, form a solid line +on the Piave and hold it with miraculous persistence, permitting the +English and French reenforcements to take up the positions assigned to +them without once coming in contact with the enemy." + +I have heard it said by critics of Italy that the retreat from Caporetto +showed the lack of courage of the Italian soldier. To gauge the courage +of an army a single disaster is as unjust as it is unintelligent. Was +the rout of the Federal forces at Bull Run a criterion of their behavior +in the succeeding years of the Civil War? Was the surrender at Sedan a +true indication of the fighting ability of the French soldier? Every +nation has had its disasters and has had to live them down. Italy did +this when, on the banks of Piave, she turned her greatest disaster into +her most glorious triumph. + +Because it was my privilege to be with the Italian army in the field +during various periods of the war, and because I know at first-hand +whereof I speak, I regret and resent the disparagement of the Italian +soldier which has been so freely indulged in since the Armistice. It may +be, of course, that you do not fully realize the magnitude of Italy's +sacrifices and achievements. Did you know, for example, that Italy held +a front longer than the British, Belgian, French and American fronts put +together? Did you know that out of a population of 37 millions she put +into the field an army of 5 million men, whereas France and her +colonies, with nearly double the population, was never able to raise +more than 5,064,000, a considerable proportion of which were black and +brown men? Did you know that in forty-one months of war Italy lost +541,000 in dead and 953,000 in wounded, and that, unlike France and +England, her armies were composed wholly of white men? Did you know +that, in spite of all that has been said about the Allies giving her +assistance, Italy at all times had more troops on the Western front than +the Allies had on the Italian? Did you know that she called up the +class of 1919 two years before their time, a measure which even France, +hard-pressed as she was, did not feel justified in taking? (I have +mentioned this before, but it will bear repetition.) Have you stopped to +think that she was the only one of the Allied nations which won a +clean-cut and decisive victory, when, on the Piave, she attacked with 51 +divisions an Austro-German army of 63 divisions, completely smashed it, +forced its surrender, and captured half a million prisoners? Did you +know that she lost more than fifty-seven per cent, of her merchant +tonnage, while England lost less than forty-three per cent, and France +less than forty per cent.? And, finally, had you realized that Italy +made greater sacrifices, in proportion to her resources and population, +than any other country engaged in the war, having devoted four-fifths of +her entire national wealth to the prosecution of the struggle? There is +your answer, chapter and verse, for the next man who sneeringly remarks, +"The Italians didn't do much, did they?" + +Just as the Trentino and the Upper Adige have been added to the kingdom +as the Province of Trent, so the redeemed regions of which Trieste is +the center, including the towns of Gorizia, Monfalcone, Capodistria, +Parenzo, Pirano, Rovigno and Pola, have been consolidated in the new +province of Julian Venetia, with about a million inhabitants and an area +of approximately 6,000 square miles. + +[Illustration: THIS IS NOT VENICE, AS YOU MIGHT SUPPOSE, BUT TRIESTE + +The sails of the fishing craft are of many colors, yellow, burnt-orange, +vermilion. At the head of the canal, its stately columns reflected in +the turquoise waters, the Bourse rises like some ancient Roman temple] + +Trieste, which, with its suburbs, has a population of not far from +400,000, with its splendid terminal facilities, its vast harbor-works, +its dry-docks and foundries, its railway communications with the +hinterland, and, above all else, its position as the natural outlet for +the trade of Austria, Bavaria and Czecho-Slovakia, constitutes not only +Italy's most valuable prize of war, but, everything considered, probably +the most important city, commercially at least, to change hands as a +result of the conflict. Curiously enough, Trieste is the least +interesting city of its size, from a visitor's point of view, that I +know. Venice always reminds me of a beautiful and charmingly gowned +woman, perpetually young, interested in art, in music, in literature, +always ready for a stroll, a dance or a flirtation. Trieste, on the +contrary, is a busy, preoccupied, rather brusque business man, wholly +self-made, who has never devoted much time to devote to pleasure because +he has been too busy making his fortune. Venice says, "If you want a +good time, let me show you how to spend your money." But Trieste growls, +"If you want to get rich, let me show you how to invest your money." The +city has broad and well-kept streets bordered by the same sort of +four-and five-and six-story buildings of brick and stone which you find +in any European commercial city; it has several unusually spacious +piazzas on which front some really pretentious buildings; it has a few +arches and doorways dating from the Roman period, though far better ones +can be found in almost any town on the Italian peninsula; on the hill +commanding the city there are an old Austrian fort and an ancient +church, both chiefly interesting for the views they command of the +harbor and the coast of Istria; some of the most abominably rough +pavements which I have ever encountered in any city; one hotel which +just escapes being excellent and several which do not escape being bad; +and a harbor, together with the wharves and moles and machinery which go +with it, which is the Triestino's pride and joy. + +To my way of thinking the most interesting sight in Trieste is a small +chateau, built in the castellated fashion which had a considerable vogue +in America shortly after the close of the Civil War, which stands amid +most beautiful gardens on the edge of the sea, two or three miles to the +west of the city. This is the Chateau of Miramar, formerly the residence +of the young Austrian Archduke Maximilian, who, dazzled by the dream of +life on an imperial throne, accepted an invitation to become Emperor of +Mexico and a few years later fell before a Mexican firing-party on the +slopes of Queretaro. Though the chateau has now passed into the +possession of the Italian Government it is still in charge of the aged +custodian who, as a youth, was body-servant to Maximilian. Barring the +fact that the paintings and certain pieces of furniture had been removed +to Vienna to save from injury by aerial bombardment, the interior of the +chateau is much as Maximilian left it when he set out with his bride, +Carlotta, the sister of the late King Leopold of the Belgians, on his +ill-fated adventure. In the study on the ground floor hangs a +photograph, still sharp and clear after the lapse of half a century, of +the members of the delegation--swarthy men in the high cravats and long +frock-coats of the period, some of them wearing the stars and sashes of +orders--who came to Miramar to offer Maximilian the Mexican crown. The +old custodian told me that he witnessed the scene and he pointed out to +me where his young master and the other actors in this, the first act of +the tragedy, stood. How little could the youthful Emperor have dreamed, +as he set sail for those distant shores, that the day would come when +the Dual Monarchy would go down in ruins, when the ancient dynasty of +the Hapsburgs would come to an inglorious end, and when the garden paths +where he and his beautiful young bride used to saunter in the moonlight +would be paced by Italian carabineers. + +If you will get out the atlas and turn to the map of Italy you will +notice at the head of the Adriatic a peninsula shaped like the head of +an Indian arrow, its tip aimed toward the unprotected flank of Italy's +eastern coast. This arrow-shaped peninsula is Istria. In the western +notch of the arrowhead, toward Italy, is Trieste--terminus of the +railway to Vienna. In the opposite notch is Fiume--terminus of the +railway which runs across Croatia and Hungary to Budapest. And at the +very tip of the arrow, as though it had been ground to a deadly +sharpness, is Pola, formerly Austria's greatest naval base. Dotting the +western coast of Istria, between Trieste and Pola, are four small +towns--Parenzo, Pirano, Capodistria and Rovigno--all purely and +distinctively Italian, and, on the other side of the peninsula, the +famous resort of Abbazia, popular with wealthy Hungarians and with the +yachtsmen of all nations before the war. + +Parenzo, Pirano, Capodistria and Rovigno were all outposts of the +Venetian Republic, forming an outer line of defense against the Slav +barbarians of the interior. Everything about them speaks of Venice: the +snarling Lion of St. Mark which is carved above their gates and +surmounts the marble columns in their piazzas; their old, old +churches--the one at Parenzo was built in the sixth century, being +copied after the famous basilica at Ravenna, across the Adriatic--the +interiors of many of them adorned, like that of St. Mark's in Venice, +with superb mosaics of gold and semi-precious stones; the carved lions' +heads, _bocca del leone_, for receiving secret missives; the delicate +tracery above the doors and windows of the palazzos, and all those other +architectural features so characteristic of the City of the Doges. There +is no questioning what these Istrian coast-towns were or are. They are +as Italian to-day as when, a thousand years ago, they formed a part of +Venice's far-flung skirmish line. But penetrate even a single mile into +the interior of the peninsula and you find a wholly different race from +these Latins of the littoral, a different architecture (if architecture +can be applied to square huts built of sun-dried bricks) and a different +tongue. These people are the Croats, a hardy, industrious agricultural +people, generally illiterate, at least as I found them in Istria, and +with few of the comforts and none of the culture which characterized the +Latin communities on the coast. In short, the towns of the western coast +are undeniably Italian; the rest of the peninsula is solidly Slav. + +The interior of Istria consists, in the main, of a barren, monotonous +and peculiarly unlovely limestone plateau known as the Karst, a +continuation of that waterless and treeless ridge, called by Italians +the Carso, which stretches from Trieste northwestward to Goritzia and +beyond. With the exception of the Bukovica of Dalmatia and the lava-beds +of southern Utah, the Istrian Karst is the most utterly hopeless region, +from the standpoint of agriculture, that I know. It is dotted with many +small farmsteads, it is true, but one marvels at the courage and +patience which their peasant owners displayed in their unequal struggle +with Nature. The rocky surface is covered with a stunted, +discouraged-looking vegetation which reminded me of that clothing the +flanks of the mountains in the vicinity of the Roosevelt Dam, in +Arizona, and here and there are vast rolling moors, uninhabited by man +or animal, as desolate, mysterious and repelling as that depicted by Sir +Arthur Conan Doyle in _The Hound of the Baskervilles_. The Karst, like +the Carso, is dotted with curious depressions called _dolinas_, some of +them as much as 100 feet in depth, the floors of which, varying in +extent from a few square yards to several acres, are covered with soil +which is as rich as the surface of the surrounding plateau is worthless. +Because of the fertility of these singular depressions, and their +immunity from the cold winds which in winter sweep the surface of the +Karst, they are utilized by the peasants for growing fruits, vegetables +and, in some cases, small patches of grain, being, in effect, sunken +gardens provided by Nature as though to recompense the Istrians, in some +measure, for their discouraging struggle for existence. + +Just behind the very tip of the peninsula, on the edge of a superb +natural harbor, the entrance to which is masked by the Brioni Islands, +is the great naval base of Pola, from the shelter of whose +fortifications and mined approaches the Austrian fleet was able to +terrorize the defenseless towns along Italy's unprotected eastern +seaboard and to menace the commerce of the northern Adriatic. Pola Is a +strange melange of the ancient and the modern, for from the topmost +tiers of the great Roman Arena--scarcely less imposing than the Coliseum +at Rome--we looked down upon a harbor dotted with the fighting monsters +of the Italian navy, while all day long Italian seaplanes swooped and +circled over the splendid arch, erected by a Roman emperor in the dim +dawn of European history, to commemorate his triumph over the +barbarians. + +It is just such anomalies as these that make almost impossible the +solution, on a basis of strict justice to the inhabitants, of the +Adriatic problem. Here you see a city that, in history, in population, +in language, is as characteristically Italian as though it were under +the shadow of the Apennines, yet encircling that city is a countryside +whose inhabitants are wholly Slav, who are intensely hostile to Italian +institutions, and many of whom have no knowledge whatsoever of the +Italian tongue. The Italians claim that Istria should be theirs because +of the undoubted Latin character of the towns along its coasts, because +their Roman and Venetian ancestors established their outposts here long +centuries ago, because the only culture that the region possesses is +Italian, and, above all else, because its possession is essential to the +safety of Italy herself. The Slavs, on the other hand, lay claim to +Istria on the ground that its first inhabitants, whether barbarians or +not, were Slavs, that the Italians who settled on its shores were but +filibusters and adventurers, and that its inhabitants, by blood, by +language, and by sentiment, are overwhelmingly Slav to-day. The only +thing on which both races agree is that the peninsula should not be +divided. It was no easy problem, you see, which the peace-makers were +expected to solve with strict justice for all. If my memory serves me +right, King Solomon was once called upon by two mothers to settle a +somewhat similar dispute, though in that case it was a child instead of +a country whose ownership was in question. So, though both Latins and +Slavs may continue to assert their rights to the peninsula in its +entirety, I imagine that the Istrian problem will eventually be settled +by the judgment of Solomon. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE BORDERLAND OF SLAV AND LATIN + + +It was the same along the entire line of the Armistice from the Brenner +down to Istria. Whenever the officials with whom we talked heard that we +were going to Fiume, they shook their heads pessimistically. "It's a +good place to stay away from just now," said one. "They won't let you +enter the city," another warned us. Or, "You mustn't think of taking the +_signora_ with you." But the representative of an American oil company +whom I met in the American consulate in Trieste regarded the excursion +from a different view-point altogether. + +"Be sure to stop at the Europa," he urged me. "It's right on the +water-front, and there isn't a better place in the city to see what's +happening. I was there last week when the mob attacked the French +Annamite troops. Believe me, friend, that was one hellish business ... +they literally cut those poor little Chinks into pieces. I saw the whole +thing from my window. I'm going back to Fiume to-morrow, and if you like +I'll tell the manager of the Europa to save you a front room." + +His tone was that of a New Yorker telling a friend from up-State that he +would reserve him a room in a Fifth Avenue hotel from which to view a +parade. + +As things turned out, however, we did not have occasion to avail +ourselves of this offer, for we found that rooms had been reserved for +us at a hotel in Abbazia, just across the bay from Fiume. This +arrangement was due to the Italian military governor, General Grazioli, +who was perfectly aware that the inhabitants of Fiume were not hanging +out any "Welcome-to-Our-City" signs for foreigners, particularly for +foreigners who were country people of President Wilson, and that the +fewer Americans there were in the town the less danger there was of +anti-American demonstrations. In view of what had happened to the +Annamites I had no overpowering desire to be the center of a similar +demonstration. Pursuant to this arrangement we slept in a great barn of +a hotel whose echoing corridors had, in happier days, been a favorite +resort of the wealth and fashion of Hungary, but whose once costly +furniture had been sadly dilapidated by the spurred boots of the +Austrian staff officers who had used it as a headquarters; in the +mornings we had our sugarless coffee and butterless war-bread on a lofty +balcony commanding a superb panorama of the Istrian coast from Icici to +Volosca and of the island-studded Bay of Quarnero, and commuted to and +from Fiume in the big gray Lancia in which we had traveled along the +line of the Armistice for upward of 2,000 miles. + +We had our first view of the Unredeemed City (though it was really not +my first view, as I had been there before the war) from a curve in the +road where it suddenly emerges from the woods of evergreen laurel above +Volosca to drop in steep white zigzags to the sea. It is superbly +situated, this ancient city over whose possession Slav and Latin are +growling at each other like dogs over a disputed bone. With its snowy +buildings spread on the slopes of a shallow amphitheater between the +sapphire waters of the Adriatic and the barren flanks of the Istrian +Karst, it suggested a lovely siren, all glistening and white, who had +emerged from the sea to lie upon the bare brown breast of a mountain +giant. + +The car, with its exhaust wide open, for your Italian driver delights in +noise, roared down the grade at express-train speed, took the hairpin +curve at the bottom on two wheels, to be brought to an abrupt halt with +an agonized squealing of brakes, our further progress being barred by a +six-inch tree-trunk which had been lowered across the road like a +barrier at an old-time country toll-gate. At one side of the road was a +picket of Italian carabinieri in field-gray uniforms, their huge cocked +hats rendered a shade less anachronistic by covers of gray linen, with +carbines slung over their shoulders, hunter fashion. On the opposite +side of the highway was a patrol of British sailors in white drill +landing-kit, their rosy, smiling faces in striking contrast to the +saturnine countenances of the Italians. (I might explain, +parenthetically, that Fiume, being in theory under the jurisdiction of +the Peace Conference, was at this time occupied by about a thousand +French troops, the same number of British, a few score American +blue-jackets, and nearly 10,000 Italians.) The sergeant in command of +the carabinieri stepped up to the car, saluted, and curtly asked for our +papers. I produced them. Among them was a pass authorizing us to go when +and where we pleased in the territory occupied by the Italian forces. It +had been given to me by the Minister of War himself, but it made about +as much impression on the sergeant as though it had been signed by +Charlie Chaplin. + +"This is good only for Italy," he said. "It will not take you across the +line of the Armistice." + +[Illustration: AT THE GATES OF FIUME + +Major Powell (second from left), Mrs. Powell, Captain Tron of the +Italian _Comando Supremo_, and the car in which they travelled 1,000 +miles] + +Thereupon I played my last trump. I produced an imposing document which +had been given me by the Italian peace delegation in Paris. It had +originally been issued by the Orlando-Sonnino cabinet, but upon the fall +of that government I had had it countersigned, before leaving Rome, by +the Nitti cabinet. It was addressed to all the military, naval, and +civil authorities of Italy, and was so flatteringly worded that it would +have satisfied St. Peter himself. But the sergeant was not in the +least impressed. He read it through deliberately, scrutinized the +official seals, examined the watermark, and then disappeared into a +sentry-box on the roadside. I could hear him talking, evidently over a +telephone. Presently he emerged and signaled to his men to raise the +barrier. "Passo," he said grudgingly, in a tone which intimated that he +was letting us enter the jealously guarded portals of Fiume against his +better judgment, the bar swung upward, the big car leaped forward like a +race-horse that feels the spur, and in another moment we were rolling +through the tree-arched, stone-paved streets of the most-talked-of city +in the world. As we sped down the Corsia Deak we passed a large hotel +which, as was quite evident, had recently been renamed, for the words +"Albergo d'Annunzio" were fresh and staring. But underneath was the +former name, which had been so imperfectly obliterated that it could +still easily be deciphered. It was "Hotel Wilson." + +To correctly visualize Fiume you must imagine a town no larger than +Atlantic City crowded upon a narrow shelf between a towering mountain +wall and the sea; a town with broad and moderately clean streets, +shaded, save in the center of the city, by double rows of stately trees +and paved with large square flagstones which make abominably rough +riding; a town with several fine thoroughfares bordered by +well-constructed four-story buildings of brick and stone; with numerous +surprisingly well-stocked shops; with miles and miles of concrete moles +and wharfs, equipped with harbor machinery of the most modern +description, and adjacent to them rows of warehouses as commodious as +the Bush Terminals in Brooklyn, and rising here and there above the +trees and the housetops, like fingers pointing to heaven, the graceful +campaniles of fine old churches, one of which, the cathedral, was +already old when the Great Navigator turned the prows of his caravels +westward from Cadiz in quest of this land we live in. + +Fiume lacks none of the conditions which make a great seaport: there is +deep water and a convenient approach, which is protected against the +ocean and against a hostile fleet by the islands of Veglia and Cherso +and against the north winds by the rocky plateau of the Karst. Yet, +despite its natural advantages and the millions which were spent in its +development by the Hungarian Government, Fiume never developed into a +port of the size and importance which the foreign commerce of Hungary +would have seemed to require, this being largely due to its unfortunate +geographical condition, for the dreary and inhospitable Karst completely +shuts the city off from the interior, the numerous tunnels and steep +gradients making rail transport by this route difficult and consequently +expensive. + +The public life of the city centers in the Piazza Adamich, a broad +square on which front numerous hotels, restaurants, and coffee-houses, +before which lounge, from midmorning until midnight, a considerable +proportion of the Italian population, sipping _cafe nero_, or tall +drinks concocted from sweet, bright-colored syrups, scanning the papers +and discussing, with much noise and gesticulation, the political +situation and the doings of the peace commissioners in Paris. Save only +Barcelona, Fiume has the most excitable and irritable population of any +city that I know. When we were there street disturbances were as +frequent as dog-fights used to be in Constantinople before the Turks +recognized that the best gloves are made from dogskins. As I have said, +a few days before our arrival a mob had attacked and killed in most +barbarous fashion a number of Annamite soldiers who were guarding a +French warehouse on the quay. Several prominent Fumani with whom I +talked attempted to justify the massacre on the ground that a French +sailor had torn a ribbon bearing the motto "_Italia o Morte_!" from the +breast of a woman of the town. They did not seem to regret the affair or +to realize that it is just such occurrences which lead the Peace +Conference to question the wisdom of subjecting the city's Slav minority +to that sort of rule. As a result of the tense atmosphere which +prevailed in the city, the nerves of the population were so on edge that +when my car back-fired with a series of violent explosions, the loungers +in front of a near-by cafe jumped as though a bomb had been thrown among +them. The patron saint of Fiume is, appropriately enough, St. Vitus. + +In discussing the question of Fiume the mistake is almost invariably +made of considering it as a single city, whereas it really consists of +two distinct communities, Fiume and Sussak, bitterly antagonistic and +differing in race, religion, language, politics, customs, and thought. +A small river, the Rieka, no wider than the Erie Canal, divides the city +into two parts, one Latin the other Slav, very much as the Rio Grande +separates the American city of El Paso from the Mexican town of Ciudad +Juarez. On the left or west bank of the river is Fiume, with +approximately 40,000 inhabitants, of whom very nearly three-fourths are +Italian. Here are the wharfs, the harbor works, the rail-head, the +municipal buildings, the hotels, and the business districts. But cross +the Rieka by the single wooden bridge which connects Fiume with Sussak +and you find yourself in a wholly different atmosphere. In a hundred +paces you pass from a city which is three-quarters Italian to a town +which is overwhelmingly Slav. There are about 4,500 people in Sussak, of +whom only one-eighth are Italian. But let it be perfectly clear that +Sussak is not Fiume. In proclaiming its annexation to Italy on the +ground of self-determination, the National Council of Fiume did not +include Sussak, which is a Croatian village in historically Croatian +territory. It will be seen, therefore, that Sussak, which is not a part +of Fiume but an entirely separate municipality, does not enter into the +question at all. As for the territory immediately adjacent to Fiume on +the north and east, it is as Slav as though it were in the heart of +Serbia. To put it briefly, Fiume is an Italian island entirely +surrounded by Slavs. + +The violent self-assertiveness of the Fumani may be attributed to the +large measure of autonomy which they have always enjoyed, Fiume's status +as a free city having been definitely established by Ferdinand I in +1530, recognized by Maria Theresa in 1776 when she proclaimed it "a +separate body annexed to the crown of Hungary," and by the Hungarian +Government finally confirmed in 1868. Louis Kossuth admitted its +extraterritorial character when he said that, even though the Magyar +tongue should be enforced elsewhere as the medium of official +communication, he considered that an exception "should be made in favor +of a maritime city whose vocation was to welcome all nations led thither +by commerce." + +Though the Italian element of the population vociferously asserts its +adherence to the slogan "_Italia o Morte_!" I am convinced that many of +the more substantial and far-seeing citizens, if they dared freely to +express their opinions, would be found to favor the restoration of the +city's ancient autonomy under the aegis of the League of Nations. The +Italians of Flume are at bottom, beneath their excitable and mercurial +temperaments, a shrewd business people who have the commercial future of +their city at heart. And they are intelligent enough to realize that, +unless there be established some stable form of government which will +propitiate the Slav minority as well as the Italian majority, the Slav +nations of the hinterland will almost certainly divert their trade, on +which Fiume's commercial importance entirely depends, to some +non-Italian port, in which event the city would inevitably retrograde to +the obscure fishing village which it was less than half a century ago. + +In order that you may have before you a clear and comprehensive picture +of this most perplexing and dangerous situation, which is so fraught +with peril for the future peace of the world, suppose that I sketch for +you, in the fewest word-strokes possible, the arguments of the rival +claimants for fair Fiume's hand. Italy's claims may be classified under +three heads: sentimental, commercial, and political. Her sentimental +claims are based on the ground that the city's population, character, +and history are overwhelmingly Italian. I have already stated that the +Italians constitute about three-fourths of the total population of +Fiume, the latest figures, as quoted in the United States Senate, giving +29,569 inhabitants to the Italians and 14,798 to the Slavs. There is no +denying that the city has a distinctively Italian atmosphere, for its +architecture is Italian, that Venetian trademark, the Lion of St. Mark, +being in evidence on several of the older buildings; the mode of outdoor +life is such as one meets in Italy; most of its stores and banks are +owned by Italians, and Italian is the prevailing tongue. The claim that +the city's history is Italian is, however, hardly borne out by history +itself, for in the sixteen centuries which have elapsed since the fall +of the Roman Empire, Fiume has been under Italian rule--that of the +republic of Venice--for just four days. + +The commercial reason underlying Italy's insistence on obtaining control +of Fiume is due to the fact that Italians are convinced that should +Fiume pass into either neutral or Jugoslav hands, it would mean the +commercial ruin of Trieste, where enormous sums of Italian money have +been invested. They assert, and with sound reasoning, that the Slavs of +the hinterland, and probably the Germans and Magyars as well, would ship +through Fiume, were it under Slav or international control, instead of +through Trieste, which is Italian. One does not need to be an economist +to realize that if Fiume could secure the trade of Jugoslavia and the +other states carved from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the commercial +supremacy of Trieste, which depends upon this same hinterland, would +quickly disappear. On the other hand, those Italians whose vision has +not been distorted by their passions clearly foresee that, should the +final disposition of Fiume prove unacceptable to the Jugoslavs, they +will almost certainly divert the trade of the interior to some Slav +port, leaving Fiume to drowse in idleness beside her moss-grown wharfs +and crumbling warehouses, dreaming dreams of her one-time prosperity. + +Italy's third reason for insisting on the cession of Fiume is political, +and, because it is based on a deep-seated and haunting fear, it is, +perhaps, the most compelling reason of all. Italy does not trust the +Jugoslavs. She cannot forget that the Austrian and Hungarian fractions +of the new Jugoslav people--in other words, the Slovenes and +Croats--were the most faithful subjects of the Dual Monarchy, fighting +for the Hapsburgs with a ferocity and determination hardly surpassed in +the war. Unlike the Poles and Czecho-Slovaks, who threw in their lot +with the Allies, the Slovenes and Croats fought, and fought desperately, +for the triumph of the Central Empires. Had these two peoples turned +against their masters early in the war, the great struggle would have +ended months, perhaps years, earlier than it did. Yet, within a few days +after the signing of the Armistice, they became Jugoslavs, and announced +that they have always been at heart friendly to the Allies. But, so the +Italians argue, their conversion has been too sudden: they have changed +their flag but not their hearts; their real allegiance is not to +Belgrade but to Berlin. The Italian attitude toward these peoples who +have so abruptly switched from enemies to allies is that of the American +soldier for the Filipino: + + "He may be a brother of William H. Taft, + But he ain't no brother of mine." + +The Italians are convinced that the three peoples who have been so +hastily welded into Jugoslavia will, as the result of internal +jealousies and dissensions, eventually disintegrate, and that, when the +break-up comes, those portions of the new state which formerly belonged +to Austria-Hungary will ally themselves with the great Teutonic or, +perhaps, Russo-Teutonic, confederation which, most students of European +affairs believe, will arise from the ruins of the Central Empires. When +that day comes the new power will look with hungering eyes toward the +rich markets which fringe the Middle Sea, and what more convenient +gateway through which to pour its merchandise--and, perhaps, its +fighting men--than Fiume in friendly hands? In order to bar forever +this, the sole gateway to the warm water still open to the Hun, the +Italians should, they maintain, be made its guardians. + +"But," you argue, "suppose Jugoslavia does _not_ break up? How can +14,000,000 Slavs seriously menace Italy's 40,000,000?" + +Ah! Now you touch the very heart of the whole matter; now you have put +your finger on the secret fear which has animated Italy throughout the +controversy over Fiume and Dalmatia. For I do not believe that it is a +reincarnated Germany which Italy dreads. It is something far more +ominous, more terrifying than that, which alarms her. For, looking +across the Adriatic, she sees the monstrous vision of a united and +aggressive Slavdom, untold millions strong, of which the Jugoslavs are +but the skirmish-line, ready to dispute not merely Italy's schemes for +the commercial mastery of the Balkans but her overlordship of that sea +which she regards as an Italian lake. + +Jugoslavia's claims to Fiume are more briefly stated. Firstly, she lays +title to it on the ground that geographically Fiume belongs to Croatia, +and that Croatia is now a part of Jugoslavia, or, to give the new +country its correct name, the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and +Slovenes. This claim is, I think, well founded, and this despite the +fact that Italy has attempted to prove, by means of innumerable +pamphlets and maps, that Fiume, being within the great semi-circular +wall formed by the Alps, is physically Italian. The Jugoslavs demand +Fiume, secondly, because, they assert, if Fiume and Sussak are +considered as a single city, that city has more Slavs than Italians, +while the population of the hinterland is almost solidly Croatian. With +the first half of this claim I cannot agree. As I have already pointed +out, Sussak is not, and never has been, a part of Fiume, and its +annexation is not demanded by the Italians. Conceding, however, for the +sake of argument, that Fiume and Sussak are parts of the same city, the +most reliable figures which I have been able to obtain show that, even +were the Slav majority in Sussak added to the Slav minority in Fiume, +the Slavs would still be able to muster barely more than a third of the +total population. By far the strongest title which the Slavs have to the +city, and the one which commands for them the greatest sympathy, is +their assertion that Fiume is the natural and, indeed, almost the only +practicable commercial outlet for Jugoslavia, and that the struggling +young state needs it desperately. In reply to this, the Italians point +out that there are numerous harbors along the Dalmatian coast which +would answer the needs of Jugoslavia as well, or almost as well, as +Fiume. Now, I am speaking from first-hand knowledge when I assert that +this is not so, for I have seen with my own eyes every harbor, or +potential harbor, on the eastern coast of the Adriatic from Istria to +Greece. As a matter of fact, the entire coast of Dalmatia would not make +up to the Jugoslavs for the loss of Fiume. The map gives no idea of the +city's importance as the southernmost point at which a standard-gauge +railway reaches the Adriatic, for the railway leading to Ragusa, to +which the Italians so repeatedly refer as providing an outlet for +Jugoslavia, is not only narrow-gauge but is in part a rack-and-pinion +mountain line. The situation is best summed up by the commander of the +American war-ship on which I dined at Spalato. + +"It is not a question of finding a good harbor for the Jugoslavs," he +said. "This coast is rich in splendid harbors. It is a question, rather, +of finding a practicable route for a standard-gauge railway over or +through the mile-high range of the Dinaric Alps, which parallel the +entire coast, shutting the coast towns off from the hinterland. Until +such a railway is built, the peoples of the interior have no means of +getting their products down to the coast save through Fiume. Italy +already has the great port of Trieste. Were she also to be awarded Fiume +she would have a strangle-hold on the trade of Jugoslavia which would +probably mean that country's commercial ruin." + +I have now given you, as fairly as I know how, the principal arguments +of the rival claimants. The Italians of Fiume, as I have already shown, +outnumber the Slavs almost three to one, and it is they who are +demanding so violently that the city should be annexed to Italy on the +ground of self-determination. But I do not believe that, because there +is an undoubted Italian majority in Fiume, the city should be awarded to +Italy. If Italy were asking only what was beyond all shadow of question +Italian, I should sympathize with her unreservedly. But to place 10,000 +Slavs under Italian rule would be as unjust and as provocative of future +trouble as to place 30,000 Italians under the rule of Belgrade. Nor is +the cession of the city itself the end of Italy's claims, for, in order +to place it beyond the range of the enemy's guns (by the "enemy" she +means her late allies, the Serbs), in order to maintain control of the +railways entering the city, and in order to bring the city actually +within her territorial borders, she desires to extend her rule over +other thousands of people who are not Italian, who do not speak the +Italian tongue, and who do not wish Italian rule. Italy has no stancher +friend than I, but neither my profound admiration for what she achieved +during the war nor my deep sympathy for the staggering losses she +suffered can blind me to the unwisdom, let us call it, of certain of her +demands. I am convinced that, when the passions aroused by the +controversy have had time to cool, the Italians will themselves question +the wisdom of accumulating for themselves future troubles by creating +new lost provinces and a new Irredenta by annexing against their will +thousands of people of an alien race. Viewing the question from the +standpoints of abstract justice, of sound politics, and of common sense, +I do not believe that Fiume should be given either to the Italians or to +the Jugoslavs, but that the interests of both, as well as the prosperity +of the Fumani themselves, should be safeguarded by making it a free +city under international control. + +No account of the extraordinary drama--farce would be a better name were +its possibilities not so tragic--which is being staged at Fiume would be +complete without some mention of the romantic figure who is playing the +part of hero or villain, according to whether your sympathies are with +the Italians or the Jugoslavs. There is nothing romantic, mind you, in +Gabriele d'Annunzio's personal appearance. On the contrary, he is one of +the most unimpressive-looking men I have ever seen. He is short of +stature--not over five feet five, I should guess--and even his +beautifully cut clothes, which fit so faultlessly about the waist and +hips as to suggest the use of stays, but partially camouflage the +corpulency of middle age. His head looks like a new-laid egg which has +been highly varnished; his pointed beard is clipped in a fashion which +reminded me of the bronze satyrs in the Naples museum; a monocle, worn +without a cord, conceals his dead eye, which he lost in battle. His walk +is a combination of a mince and a swagger; his movements are those of +an actor who knows that the spotlight is upon him. + +Though d'Annunzio takes high rank among the modern poets, many of his +admirers holding him to be the greatest one alive, he is a far greater +orator. His diction is perfect, his wealth of imagery exhaustless; I +have seen him sway a vast audience as a wheat-field is swayed by the +wind. His life he values not at all; the four rows of ribbons which on +the breast of his uniform make a splotch of color were not won by his +verses. Though well past the half-century mark, he has participated in a +score of aerial combats, occupying the observer's seat in his fighting +Sva and operating the machine-gun. But perhaps the most brilliant of his +military exploits was a bloodless one, when he flew over Vienna and +bombed that city with proclamations, written by himself, pointing out to +the Viennese the futility of further resistance. His popularity among +all classes is amazing; his word is law to the great organization known +as the _Combatenti_, composed of the 5,000,000 men who fought in the +Italian armies. He is a jingo of the jingoes, his plans for Italian +expansion reaching far beyond the annexation of Fiume or even all of +Dalmatia, for he has said again and again that he dreams of that day +when Italy will have extended her rule over all that territory which +once was held by Rome. + +[Illustration: THE INHABITANTS OF FIUME CHEERING D'ANNUNZIO AND HIS +RAIDERS + +"Save only Barcelona, Fiume has the most excitable population of any +place that I know." + +The patron saint of the city is, appropriately enough, St. Vitus] + +He is a very picturesque and interesting figure, is Gabriele +d'Annunzio--very much in earnest, wholly sincere, but fanatical, +egotistical, intolerant of the rights or opinions of others, a +visionary, and perhaps a little mad. I imagine that he would rather have +his name linked with that of that other soldier-poet, who "flamed away +at Missolonghi" nearly a century ago, than with any other character in +history save Garibaldi. D'Annunzio, like Byron, was an exile from his +native land. Both had a habit of never paying their bills; both had +offended against the social codes of their times; both flamed against +what they believed to be injustice and tyranny; both had a passionate +love for liberty; both possessed a highly developed sense of the +dramatic and delighted in playing romantic roles. I have heard it said +that d'Annunzio's raid on Fiume would make his name immortal, but I +doubt it. Barely a score of years have passed since the raid on +Johannesburg, which was a far more daring and hazardous exploit than +d'Annunzio's Fiume performance, yet to-day how many people remember +Doctor Jameson? It can be said for this middle-aged poet that he has +successfully defied the government of Italy, that he flouted the royal +duke who was sent to parley with him, that he seduced the Italian army +and navy into committing open mutiny--"a breach of that military +discipline," in the words of the Prime Minister, "which is the +foundation of the safety of the state"--and that he has done more to +shake foreign confidence in the stability of the Italian character and +the dependability of the Italian soldier than the Austro-Germans did +when they brought about the disaster at Caporetto. + +I have heard it said that the Nitti government had advance knowledge of +the raid on Fiume and that the reason it took no vigorous measures +against the filibusters was because it secretly approved of their +action. This I do not believe. With President Wilson, the Jugoslavs, +d'Annunzio, and the Italian army and navy arrayed against him, I am +convinced that Mr. Nitti did everything that could be done without +precipitating either a war or a revolution. Much credit is also due to +the Jugoslavs for their forbearance and restraint under great +provocation. They must have been sorely tempted to give the Poet the +spanking he so richly deserves. + + * * * * * + +When the small army of newspaper correspondents who were despatched by +the great New York and London dailies to Khartoum to interview Colonel +Roosevelt upon his emergence from the jungle started up the White Nile +to meet the explorer, they were deterred, both by the shortage of boats +and the question of expense, from chartering individual steamers. But +the public at home was not permitted to know of these petty limitations +and annoyances. On the contrary, people all over the United States, at +their breakfast-tables, read the despatches from the far-off Sudan dated +from "On board the New York _Herald's_ dahabeah _Rameses_" or "The New +York _American's_ despatch-boat _Abbas Hilmi_," or "The Chicago +_Tribune's_ special steamer _General Gordon_," and never dreamed that +the young men in sun-helmets and white linen who were writing those +despatches were comfortably seated under the awnings of the same +decrepit stern-wheeler, which they had chartered jointly, but on which, +in order to lend importance and dignity to his despatches, each +correspondent had bestowed a particular name. + +But the destroyer _Sirio_, which we found awaiting us at Fiume, we did +not have to share with any one. Thanks to the courtesy of the Italian +Ministry of Marine, she was all ours, while we were aboard her, from her +knife-like prow to the screws kicking the water under her stern. + +"I am under orders to place myself entirely at your disposal," explained +her youthful and very stiffly starched skipper, Commander Poggi. "I am +to go where you desire and to stop as long as you please. Those are my +instructions." + +Thus it came about that, shortly after noon on a scorching summer day, +we cast off our moorings and, leaving quarrel-torn Fiume abaft, turned +the nose of the _Sirio_ sou' by sou'-west, down the coast of Dalmatia. +The sun-kissed waters of the Bay of Quarnero looked for all the world +like a vast azure carpet strewn with a million sparkling diamonds; on +our starboard quarter stretched the green-clad slopes of Istria, with +the white villas of Abbazia peeping coyly out from amid the groves of +pine and laurel; to the eastward the bleak brown peaks of the Dinaric +Alps rose, savage, mysterious, forbidding, against the cloudless summer +sky. Perhaps no stretch of coast in all the world has had so varied and +romantic a history or so many masters as this Dalmatian seaboard. Since +the days of the tattooed barbarians who called themselves Illyrian, this +coast has been ruled in turn by Phoenicians, Celts, Macedonians, Greeks, +Romans, Goths, Byzantines, Croats, Serbs, Bulgars, Huns, Avars, +Saracens, Normans, Magyars, Genoese, Venetians, Tartars, Bosnians, +Turks, French, Russians, Montenegrins, British, Austrians, Italians--and +now by Americans, for from Cape Planca southward to Ragusa, a distance +of something over a hundred miles, the United States is the governing +power and an American admiral holds undisputed sway. + +Leaning over the rail as we fled southward I lost myself in dreams of +far-off days. In my mind I could see, sweeping past in imaginary review, +those other vessels which, all down the ages, had skirted these same +shores: the purple sails of Phoenicia, Greek galleys bearing colonists +from Cnidus, Roman triremes with the slaves sweating at the oars, +high-powered, low-waisted Norman caravels with the arms of their +marauding masters painted on their bellowing canvas, stately Venetian +carracks with carved and gilded sterns, swift-sailing Uskok pirate +craft, their decks crowded with swarthy men in skirts and turbans, +Genoese galleons, laden with the products of the hot lands, French and +English frigates with brass cannon peering from their rows of ports, the +grim, gray monsters of the Hapsburg navy. And then I suddenly awoke, +for, coming up from the southward at full speed, their slanting funnels +vomiting great clouds of smoke, were four long, low, lean, incredibly +swift craft, ostrich-plumes of snowy foam curling from their bows, which +sped past us like wolfhounds running with their noses to the ground. As +they passed I could see quite plainly, flaunting from each taffrail, a +flag of stripes and stars. + +The sun was sinking behind Italy when, threading our way amid the maze +of islands and islets which border the Dalmatian shore, we saw beyond +our bows, silhouetted against the rose-coral of the evening sky, the +slender campaniles and the crenellated ramparts of Zara. It was so still +and calm and beautiful that I felt as though I were looking at a scene +upon a stage and that the curtain would descend at any moment and +destroy the illusion. The little group of white-clad naval officers who +greeted us upon the quay informed us that the governor-general, Admiral +Count Millo, had placed at our disposal the yacht _Zara_, formerly the +property of the Austrian Emperor, on which we were to live during our +stay in the Dalmatian capital. It was a peculiarly thoughtful thing to +do, for the summers are hot in Zara, the city's few hotels leave much to +be desired, and a stay at a palace, even that of a provincial governor, +is hedged about by a certain amount of formality and restrictions. But +the _Zara_, while we were aboard her, was as much ours as the +_Mayflower_ is Mr. Wilson's. We occupied the spacious after-cabins, +exquisitely paneled in white mahogany, which had been used by the +Austrian archduchesses and whose furnishings still bore the imperial +crown, and our breakfasts were served under the white awnings stretched +over the after-deck, where, lounging in the grateful shade, we could +look out across the harbor, dotted with the gaudy sails of fishing craft +and bordered by the walls and gardens of the quaint old city, to the +islands of Arbe and Pago, rising, like huge, uncut emeralds, from the +lazy southern sea. At noon we usually lunched with a score or more of +staff-officers in the large, cool dining-room of the officers' mess, and +at night we dined with the governor-general and his family at the +palace, formerly the residence of the Austrian viceroys. Dinner over, we +lounged in cane chairs on the terrace, served by white-clad, +silent-footed servants with coffee, cigarettes, and the maraschino for +which this coast is famous. Those were never-to-be-forgotten evenings, +for the gently heaving breast of the Adriatic glowed with a +phosphorescent luminousness, the air was heavy with the fragrance of +orange, almond, and oleander, the sky was like purple velvet, and the +stars seemed very near. + +Though the population of Dalmatia is overwhelmingly Slav, quite +two-thirds of the 14,000 inhabitants of Zara, its capital, are Italian. +Yet, were it not for the occasional Morlachs in their picturesque +costumes seen in the markets or on the wharfs, one would not suspect the +presence of any Slav element in the town, for the dim and tortuous +streets and the spacious squares bear Italian names--Via del Duomo, Riva +Vecchia, Piazza della Colonna; crouching above the city gates is the +snarling Lion of St. Mark, and everywhere one hears the liquid accents +of the Latin. Zara, like Fiume, is an Italian colony set down on a +Slavonian shore, and, like its sister-city to the north, it bears the +indelible and unmistakable imprint of Italian civilization. + +The long, narrow strip of territory sandwiched between the Adriatic and +the Dinaric Alps which comprised the Austrian province of Dalmatia, +though upward of 200 miles in length, has an area scarcely greater than +that of Connecticut and a population smaller than that of Cleveland. +Scarcely more than a tenth of its whole surface is under the plow, the +rest, where it is not altogether sterile, consisting of mountain +pasture. With the exception of scattered groves on the landward slopes, +the country is virtually treeless, the forests for which Dalmatia was +once famous having been cut down by the Venetian ship-builders or +wantonly burned by the Uskok pirates, while every attempt at replanting +has been frustrated by the shallowness of the soil, the frequent +droughts, and the multitudes of goats which browse on the young trees. +The dreary expanse of the Bukovica, lying between Zara and the Bosnian +frontier, is, without exception, the most inhospitable region that I +have ever seen. For mile after mile, far as the eye can see, the earth +is overlaid by a thick stratum of jagged limestone, so rough that no +horse could traverse it, so sharp and flinty that a quarter of an hour's +walking across it would cut to pieces the stoutest pair of boots. Under +the rays of the summer sun these rocks become as hot as the top of a +stove; so hot, indeed, that eggs can be cooked upon them, while metal +objects exposed for only a few minutes to the sun will burn the hand. +Scattered here and there over this terrible plateau are tiny farmsteads, +their houses and the walls shutting in the little patches under +cultivation being built from the stones obtained in clearing the soil, a +task requiring incredible patience. No wonder that the folk who dwell +in them are characterized by expressions as stony and hopeless as the +soil from which they wring a wretched existence. + +No seaboard of the Mediterranean, save only the coast of Greece, is so +deeply indented as the Dalmatian littoral, with Its unending succession +of rock-bound bays, as frequent as the perforations on a postage-stamp, +and its thick fringe of islands. In calm weather the channels between +these islands and the mainland resemble a chain of landlocked lakes, +like those in the Adirondacks or in southern Ontario, being connected by +narrow straits called _canales_, brilliantly clear to a depth of several +fathoms. As a rule, the surrounding hills are rugged, bleached yellow or +pale russet, and destitute of verdure, but their monotony is relieved by +the half-ruined castles and monasteries which, perched on the rocky +heights, perpetually reminded me of Howard Pyle's paintings, and by the +medieval charm of Zara, Sebenico, Spalato, Ragusa, Arbe, and Curzola, +whose architecture, though predominantly Venetian, bears characteristic +traces of the many races which have ruled them. + +Just as Italy insisted on pushing her new borders up to the Brenner so +that she might have a strategic frontier on the north, so she lays claim +to the larger of the Dalmatian islands--Lissa, Lesina, Curzola, and +certain others--in order to protect her Adriatic shores. A glance at the +map will make her reasons amply plain. There stretches Italy's eastern +coastline, 600 miles of it, from Venice to Otranto, with half a dozen +busy cities and a score of fishing towns, as bare and unprotected as a +bald man's hatless head. Not only is there not a single naval base on +Italy's Adriatic coast south of Venice, but there is no harbor or inlet +that can be transformed into one. Yet across the Adriatic, barely four +hours steam by destroyer away, is a wilderness of islands and deep +harbors where an enemy's fleet could lie safely hidden, from which it +could emerge to attack Italian commerce or to bombard Italy's +unprotected coast towns, and where it could take refuge when the pursuit +became too hot. All down the ages the dwellers along Italy's eastern +seaboard have been terrorized by naval raids from across the Adriatic. +And Italy has determined that they shall be terrorized no more. How +history repeats itself! Just as Rome, twenty-two centuries ago, could +not permit the neighboring islands of Sicily to fall into the hands of +Carthage, so Italy cannot permit these coastwise islands, which form her +only protection against attacks from the east, to pass under the control +of the Jugoslavs. + +"But," I said to the Italians with whom I discussed the matter, "why do +you need any such protection now that the world is to have a League of +Nations? Isn't that a sufficient guarantee that the Jugoslavs will never +attack you?" + +"The League of Nations is in theory a splendid thing," was their answer. +"We subscribe to it in principle most heartily. But because there is a +policeman on duty in your street, do you leave wide open your front +door?" + +To be quite candid, I do not think that it is against Jugoslavia, or, +perhaps it would be more accurate to say, against an unaided Jugoslavia, +that Italy is taking precautions. I have already said, I believe, that +thinking Italians look with grave forebodings to the day when a great +Slav confederation shall rise across the Adriatic, but that day, as they +know full well, is still far distant. Italy's desperate insistence on +retaining possession of the more important Dalmatian islands is dictated +by a far more immediate danger than that. She is convinced that her next +war will be fought, not with the weak young state of Jugoslavia, but +with Jugoslavia _allied with France_. Every Italian with whom I +discussed the question--and I might add, without boasting, many highly +placed and well-informed Italians have honored me with their +confidence--firmly believes that France is jealous of Italy's rapidly +increasing power in the Mediterranean, and that she is secretly +intriguing with the Jugoslavs and the Greeks to prevent Italy obtaining +commercial supremacy in the Balkans. I do not say that this is my +opinion, mind you, but I do say that it is the opinion held by most +Italians. I found that the resentment against the French for what the +Italians term France's "betrayal" of Italy at the Peace Conference was +almost universal; everywhere in Italy I found a deep-seated distrust of +France's commercial ambitions and political designs. Though the Italians +admit that the Jugoslavs will not be able to build a navy for many years +to come, they fear, or profess to fear, that the day is not +immeasurably far distant when a French battle fleet, co-operating with +the armies of Jugoslavia, will threaten Italy's Adriatic seaboard. And +they are determined that, should such a day ever come, French ships +shall not be afforded the protection, as were the Austrian, of the +Dalmatian islands. Italy, with her great modern battle fleet and her +5,000,000 fighting men, regards the threats of Jugoslavia with something +akin to contempt, but France, turned imperialistic and arrogant by her +victory over the Hun, Italy distrusts and fears, believing that, while +protesting her friendship, she is secretly fomenting opposition to +legitimate Italian aspirations in the Balkan peninsula and in the Middle +Sea. (Again let me remind you that I am giving you not my own, but +Italy's point of view.) You will sneer at this, perhaps, as a phantasm +of the imagination, but I assure you, with all the earnestness and +emphasis at my command, that this distrust of one great Latin nation for +another, whether it is justified or not, forms a deadly menace to the +future peace of the world. + +Because I did not wish to confine my observations to the coast towns, +which are, after all, essentially Italian, I motored across Dalmatia at +its widest part, from Zara, through Benkovac, Kistonje, and Knin, to the +little hamlet of Kievo, on the Jugoslav frontier. Though the Slav +population of the Dalmatian hinterland is, according to the assertions +of Belgrade, bitterly hostile to Italian rule, I did not detect a single +symptom of animosity toward the Italian officers who were my companions +on the part of the peasants whom we passed. They displayed, on the +contrary, the utmost courtesy and good feeling, the women, looking like +huge and gaudily dressed dolls in their snowy blouses and embroidered +aprons, courtesying, while the tall, fine-looking men gravely touched +the little round caps which are the national head-gear of Dalmatia. + +Kievo is the last town in Dalmatia, being only a few score yards from +the Bosnian frontier. Its little garrison was in command of a young +Italian captain, a tall, slender fellow with the blond beard of a Viking +and the dreamy eyes of a poet. He had been stationed at this lonely +outpost for seven months, he told me, and he welcomed us as a man +wrecked on a desert island would welcome a rescue party. In order to +escape from the heat and filth and insects of the village, he had built +in a near-by grove a sort of arbor, with a roof of interlaced branches +to keep off the sun. Its furnishings consisted of a home-made table, an +army cot, two or three decrepit chairs, and a phonograph. I did not need +to inquire where he had obtained the phonograph, for on its cover was +stenciled the familiar red triangle of the Y.M.C.A.--the "_Yimka_," as +the Italians call it--which operates more than 300 _casas_ for the use +of the Italian army. While our host was preparing a dubious-looking +drink from sweet, bright-colored syrups and lukewarm water, I amused +myself by glancing over the little stack of records on the table. They +were, of course, nearly all Italian, but I came upon three that I knew +well: "_Loch Lomond_," "_Old Folks at Home_" and "_So Long, Letty_." It +was like meeting a party of old friends in a strange land. I tried the +later record, and though it was not very clear, for the captain's supply +of needles had run out and he had been reduced to using ordinary pins, +it was startling to hear Charlotte Greenwood's familiar voice caroling +"_So long, so long, Letty_," there on the borders of Bosnia, with a +picket of curious Jugoslavs, rifles across their knees, seated on the +rocky hillside, barely a stone's throw away. Still, come to think about +it, the war produced many contrasts quite as strange, as, for example, +when the New York Irish, the old 69th, crossed the Rhine with the +regimental band playing "_The Sidewalks of New York_." + +We touched at Sebenico, which is forty knots down the coast from Zara, +in order to accept an invitation to lunch with Lieutenant-General +Montanari, who commands all the Italian troops in Dalmatia. Now before +we started down the Adriatic we had been warned that, because of +President Wilson's attitude on the Fiume question, the feeling against +Americans ran very high, and that from the Italians we must be prepared +for coldness, if not for actual insults. Well, this luncheon at Sebenico +was an example of the insults we received and the coldness with which we +were treated. Because our destroyer was late, half a hundred busy +officers delayed their midday meal for two hours in order not to sit +down without us. The table was decorated with American flags, and other +American flags had been hand-painted on the menus. And, as a final +affront, a destroyer had been sent across the Adriatic Sea to obtain +lobsters because the general had heard that my wife was particularly +fond of them. After that experience don't talk to me about Southern +hospitality. Though the Italians bitterly resent President Wilson's +interference in an affair which they consider peculiarly their own, +their resentment does not extend to the President's countrymen. Their +attitude is aptly illustrated by an incident which took place at the +mess of a famous regiment of Bersaglieri, when the picture of President +Wilson, which had hung on the wall of the mess-hall, opposite that of +the King, was taken down--and an American flag hung in its place. + +The most interesting building in Sebenico is the cathedral, which was +begun when America had yet to be discovered. The chief glory of the +cathedral is its exterior, with its superb carved doors, its countless +leering, grinning gargoyles--said to represent the evil spirits expelled +from the church--and a broad frieze, running entirely around the +edifice, composed of sculptured likenesses of the architects, artists, +sculptors, masons, and master-builders who participated in its +construction. Put collars, neckties, and derby hats on some of them and +you would have striking likenesses of certain labor leaders of to-day. +The next time a building of note is erected in this country the +countenances of the bricklayers, hod-carriers, and walking delegates +might be immortalized in some such fashion. I offer the suggestion to +the labor-unions for what it is worth. + +Throughout all the years of Austrian domination the citizens of Sebenico +remained loyal to their Italian traditions, as is proved by the +medallions ornamenting the facade of the cathedral, each of which bears +the image of a saint. One of these sculptured saints, it was pointed out +to me, has the unmistakable features of Victor Emanuel I, another those +of Garibaldi. Thus did the Italian workmen of their day cunningly +express their defiance of Austria's tyranny by ornamenting one of her +most splendid cathedrals with the heads of Italian heroes. Imagine +carving the heads of Elihu Root and Charles E. Hughes on the facade of +Tammany Hall! + +Next to the cathedral, the most interesting building in Sebenico is the +insect-powder factory. It is a large factory and does a thriving +business, the need for its product being Balkan-wide. If, for upward of +five months, you had fought nightly engagements with the _cimex +lectularius_, you would understand how vital is an ample supply of +powder. Believe me or not, as you please, but in many parts of Dalmatia +and Albania we were compelled to defend our beds against nocturnal +raiding-parties by raising veritable ramparts of insect-powder, very +much as in Flanders we threw up earthworks against the assaults of the +Hun, while in Monastir the only known way of obtaining sleep is to set +the legs of one's bed in basins filled with kerosene. + +Four hours steaming south from Sebenico brought us to Spalato, the +largest city of Dalmatia and one of the most picturesquely situated +towns in the Levant. It owes its name to the great palace (_palatium_) +of Diocletian, within the precincts of which a great part of the old +town is built and around which have sprung up its more modern suburbs. +Cosily ensconced between the stately marble columns which formed the +palace's facade are fruit, tobacco, barber, shoe, and tailor shops, +whose proprietors drive a roaring trade with the sailors from the +international armada assembled in the harbor. A great hall, which had +probably originally been one of the vestibules of the palace, was +occupied by the Knights of Columbus, the place being in charge of a +khaki-clad priest, Father Mullane, of Johnstown, Pa., who twice daily +dispensed true American hospitality, in the form of hot doughnuts and +mugs of steaming coffee, to the blue-jackets from the American ships. As +there was no coal to be had in the town, he made the doughnuts with the +aid of a plumber's blowpipe. In the course of our conversation Father +Mullane mentioned that he was living with the Serbian bishop--at least I +think he was a bishop-of Spalato. + +"I suppose he speaks English or French," I remarked. + +"He does not," was the answer. + +"Then you must have picked up some Serb or Italian," I hazarded. + +"Niver a wurrd of thim vulgar tongues do I know," said he. + +"Then how do you and the bishop get along?" + +"Shure," said Father Mullane, in the rich brogue which is, I imagine, +something of an affectation, "an' what is the use of bein' educated for +the church if we were not able to converse with ease an' fluency in +iligant an' refined Latin?" + +When we were leaving Spalato, Father Mullane presented us with a _Bon +Voyage_ package which contained cigarettes, a box of milk chocolate, and +a five-pound tin of gum-drops. The cigarettes we smoked, the chocolate +we ate, but the gum-drops we used for tips right across the Balkans. In +lands whose people have not known the taste of sugar for five years we +found that a handful of gum-drops would accomplish more than money. A +few men with Father Mullane's resource, tact, and sense of humor would +do more than all the diplomats under the roof of the Hotel Crillon to +settle international differences and make the nations understand each +other. + +I had been warned by archaeological friends, before I went to Dalmatia, +that the ruins of Salona, which once was the capital of Roman Dalmatia +and the site of the summer palace of Diocletian, would probably +disappoint me. They date from the period of Roman decadence, so my +learned friends explained, and, though following Roman traditions, +frequently show traces of negligence, a fact which is accounted for by +the haste with which the ailing and hypochondriac Emperor sought to +build himself a retreat from the world. Still, the little excursion--for +Salona is only five miles from Spalato--provided much that was worth the +seeing: a partially excavated amphitheater, a long row of stone +sarcophagi lying in a trench, one or two fine gates, and some +beautifully preserved mosaics. I must confess, however, that I was more +interested in the modern aspects of this region than in its glorious +past, for, standing upon the massive walls of the Roman city, I looked +down upon a panorama of power such as Diocletian had never pictured in +his wildest dreams, for, moored in a long and impressive row, their +stern-lines made fast to the _Molo_, was a line of war-ships flying the +flags of England, France, Italy, and the United States. On the right of +the line, as befitted the fact that its commander was the senior naval +officer and in charge of all this portion of the coast, was Admiral +Andrews's flag-ship, the _Olympia_, but little changed, at least to the +casual glance, since that day, more than twoscore years ago, when she +blazed her way into Manila Bay and won for us a colonial empire. On her +bridge, outlined in brass tacks, I was shown Admiral Dewey's footprints, +just as he stood at the beginning of the battle when he gave the order +"You may fire when you are ready, Gridley." + +Of the 18,000 inhabitants of Spalato, less than a tenth are Italian, the +general character of the town and the sympathies of its inhabitants +being strongly pro-Slav. In fact, its streets were filled with Jugoslav +soldiers, many of them still wearing the uniforms of the Austrian +regiments in which they had served but with Serbian _kepis_, while +others looked strangely familiar in khaki uniforms furnished them by the +United States. It being warm weather, most of the men wore their coats +unbuttoned, thereby displaying a considerable expanse of hairy chest or +violently colored underwear and producing a somewhat negligee effect. +Because of the presence in the town of the Jugoslav soldiery, the crews +of the Italian war-ships were not permitted to go ashore with the +sailors of the other nations, as Admiral Andrews feared that their +presence might provoke unpleasant incidents. Hence their "shore leave" +had, for nearly six months, been confined to the narrow concrete _Molo_, +where they were permitted to stroll in the evenings and where the +Italian girls of the town came to see them. For a Jugoslav girl to have +been seen in company with an Italian sailor would have meant her social +ostracism, if nothing worse. + +Though Italy will unquestionably insist on the cession of certain of the +Dalmatian islands, in order, as I have already pointed out, to assure +herself a defensible eastern frontier, and though she will ask for Zara +and possibly for Sebenico on the ground of their preponderantly Italian +character, I believe that she is prepared to abandon her original claims +to Dalmatia, which is, when all is said and done, almost purely +Slavonian, Jugoslavia thus obtaining nearly 550 miles of coast. Now I +will be quite frank and say that when I went to Dalmatia I was strongly +opposed to the extension of Italian rule over that region. And I still +believe that it would be a political mistake. But, after seeing the +country from end to end and talking with the Italian officials who have +been temporarily charged with its administration, I have become +convinced that they have the best interests of the people genuinely at +heart and that the Dalmatians might do worse, so far as justice and +progress are concerned, than to intrust their future to the guidance of +such men. + +It had been our original intention to steam straight south from Spalato +to the Bocche di Cattaro and Montenegro, but, being foot-loose and free +and having plenty of coal in the _Sirio's_ bunkers, we decided to make a +detour in order to visit the Curzolane Islands. In case you cannot +recall its precise situation, I might remind you that the Curzolane +Archipelago, consisting of several good-sized islands--Brazza, Lesina, +Lissa, Melida, and Curzola--and a great number of smaller ones, lies off +the Dalmatian coast, almost opposite Ragusa. From Spalato we laid our +course due south, past Solta, famed for its honey produced from rosemary +and the cistus-rose; skirted the wooded shores of Brazza, the largest +island of the group, rounded Capo Pellegrino and entered the lovely +harbor of Lesina. We did not anchor but, slowing to half-speed, made +the circuit of the little port, running close enough to the shore to +obtain pictures of the famous Loggia built by Sanmicheli, the Fondazo, +the ancient Venetian arsenal, and the crumbling Spanish fort, perched +high on a crag above the town. Then south by west again, past Lissa, the +western-most island of the group, where an Italian fleet under Persano +was defeated and destroyed by an Austrian squadron under Tegetthof in +1866. A marble lion in the local cemetery commemorated the victory and +marked the resting-places of the Austrian dead, but when the Italians +took possession of the island after the Armistice they changed the +inscription on the monument so that it now commemorates their final +victory over Austria. It was not, I think, a very sportsmanlike +proceeding. + +Leaving Lissa to starboard, we steamed through the Canale di +Sabbioncello, with exquisite panoramas unrolling on either hand, and +dropped anchor off the quay of Curzola, where the governor of the +islands, Admiral Piazza, awaited us with his staff. In spite of the +bleakness of the surrounding mountains, Curzola is one of the most +exquisitely beautiful little towns that I have ever seen. The next time +you are in the Adriatic you should not fail to go there. Time and the +hand of man--for the people are a color-loving race--have given many +tints, soft and bright, to its roofs, towers, and ramparts. It is a town +of dim, narrow, winding streets, of steep flights of worn stone steps, +of moss-covered archways, and of some of the most splendid specimens of +the domestic architecture of the Middle Ages that exist outside of the +Street of the Crusaders in Rhodes. The sole modern touches are the +costumes of the islanders, and they are sufficiently picturesque not to +spoil the picture. How the place has escaped the motion-picture people I +fail to understand. (As a matter of fact, it hasn't, for I took with me +an operator and a camera--the first the islanders had ever seen.) +Besides the Cathedral of San Marco, with its splendid doors, its +exquisitely carved choir-stalls black with age and use, its choir +balustrade and pulpit of translucent alabaster, and its dim old +altar-piece by Tintoretto, the town boasts the Loggia or council +chambers, the palace of the Venetian governors, the noble mansion of the +Arnieri, and, brooding over all, a towering campanile, five centuries +old. The Lion of St. Mark, which appears on several of the public +buildings, holds beneath its paw a closed instead of an open +book--symbolizing, so I was told, the islanders' dissatisfaction with +certain laws of the Venetians. + +But the phase of my visit which I enjoyed the most was when Admiral +Piazza took us across the bay, on a Detroit-built submarine-chaser, to a +Franciscan monastery dating from the fifteenth century. We were met by +the abbot at the water-stairs, and, after being shown the beautiful +Venetian Gothic cloisters, with alabaster columns whose carving was +almost lacelike in its delicate tracery, we were led along a wooded path +beside the sea, over a carpet of pine-needles, to a cloistered +rose-garden, in which stood, amid a bower of blossoms, a blue and white +statue of the Virgin. The fragrance of the flowers in the little +enclosure was like the incense in a church, above our heads the great +pines formed a canopy of green, and the music was furnished by the birds +and the murmuring sea. Here we seemed a world away from the waiting +armies and the great gray battleships, from the quarrels of Latin and +Slav. It was the first real peace that I had known after five years of +war, and I should have liked to remain there longer. But Montenegro, +Albania, Macedonia, all the unhappy, war-torn lands of the Near East lay +before me, and I turned reluctantly away. But my thoughts keep harking +back to the little town beside the turquoise bay, to the restfulness of +its old, old buildings, to the perfume of its flowers, and the +whispering voice of its turquoise sea. So some day, when the world is +really at peace and there are no more wars to write about, I think that +I shall go back to where + + "Far, far from here, + The Adriatic breaks in a warm bay + Among the green Illyrian hills." + + + + +CHAPTER III + +THE CEMETERY OF FOUR EMPIRES + + +We stood on the forward deck of the _Sirio_ as she slipped southward, +through the placid waters of the Adriatic, at twenty knots an hour. Less +than a league away the Balkan mountains, savage, mysterious, forbidding, +rose in a rocky rampart against the eastern sky. + +"Did it ever occur to you," remarked the Italian officer who stood +beside me, a noted historian in his own land, "that four great empires +have died as a result of their lust for domination over the wretched +lands which lie beyond those mountains? Austria coveted Serbia--and the +empire of the Hapsburgs is in fragments now. Russia, seeing her +influence in the peninsula imperiled, hastened to the support of her +fellow Slavs--but Russia has gone down in red ruin, and the Romanoffs +are dead. Germany, seeking a gateway to the warm water, and a highway +to the East, seized on the excuse thus offered to launch her waiting +armies--and the empire reared by the Hohenzollerns is bankrupt and +broken. Turkey fought to retain her hold on such European territory as +still remained under the crescent banner. To-day a postmortem is about +to be held on the Turkish Empire and the House of Osman. Think of it! +Four great empires, four ancient dynasties, lie buried over there in the +Balkans. It is something more than a range of mountains at which we are +looking; it is the wall of a cemetery." + +Rada di Antivari is a U-shaped bay, the color of a turquoise, from whose +shores the Montenegrin mountains rise in tiers, like the seats of an +arena. We put in there unexpectedly because a _bora_, sweeping suddenly +down from the northwest, had lashed the Adriatic into an ugly mood and +our destroyer, whose decks were almost as near the water as those of a +submarine running awash, was not a craft that one would choose for +comfort in such weather. Nor was our feeling of security increased by +the knowledge that we were skirting the edges of one of the largest +mine-fields in the Adriatic. But the _Sirio_ had scarcely poked her +sharp nose around the end of the breakwater which provides the excuse +for dignifying the exposed roadstead of Antivari (with the accent on the +second syllable, so that it rhymes with "discovery") by the name of +harbor before I saw what we had stumbled upon some form of trouble. +There were three other Italian destroyers in the harbor but, instead of +being moored snugly alongside the quay, they were strung out in a +semblance of battle formation, so that their deck-guns, from which the +canvas muzzle-covers had been removed, could sweep the rocky heights +above and around them. A string of signal-flags broke out from our +masthead and was answered in like fashion by the flag-ship of the +flotilla, after which formal exchange of greetings our wireless began to +crackle and splutter in an animated explanation of our unexpected +appearance. Our hawsers had scarcely been made fast before a launch left +the flag-ship and came plowing toward us, a knot of white-uniformed +officers in the stern. From the blue rug with the Italian arms, which, +as I could see through my glasses, was draped over the stern-sheets, I +deduced that the commander of the flotilla was paying us a visit. + +"You have come at rather an unfortunate moment," he said after the +introductions were over. "Last night we were fired on by Jugoslavs on +the mountainside over there," indicating the heights across the harbor. +"In fact, the firing has just ceased. There must have been a thousand of +them or more, judging from the flashes. But I hope that madame will not +be alarmed, for she is really quite safe. They are firing at long range, +and the only danger is from a stray bullet. Still, it is most +embarrassing. On madame's account I am sorry." + +His manner was that of a host apologizing to a guest because the +children of the family have measles and at the same time attempting to +convince the guest that measles are hardly ever contagious. I relieved +his quite obvious embarrassment by assuring him that Mrs. Powell much +preferred taking chances with snipers' bullets to the discomfort of a +destroyer in an ugly sea; and that, having journeyed six thousand miles +for the express purpose of seeing what was happening in the Balkans, we +would be disappointed if nothing happened at all. + +When I left Paris for the Adriatic I carried with me the impression, as +the result of conversations with members of the various peace +delegations, that the people of Montenegro were almost unanimously in +favor of annexation to Serbia, thereby becoming a part of the new +Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes. But before I had spent +twenty-four hours in Montenegro itself I discovered that on the subject +of the political future of their little country the Montenegrins are +very far from being of the same mind. And, being a simple, primitive +folk, and strong believers in the superiority of the bullet to the +ballot, instead of sitting down and arguing the matter, they take cover +behind a convenient rock and, when their political opponents pass by, +take pot-shots at them. + +My preconceived opinions about political conditions in Montenegro were +largely based on the knowledge that shortly after the signing of the +Armistice a Montenegrin National Assembly, so called, had met at +Podgoritza, and, after declaring itself in favor of the deposition of +King Nicholas and the Petrovitch dynasty, which has ruled in Montenegro +since William of Orange sat on the throne of England, voted for the +union of Montenegro with the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes. +Just how representative of the real sentiments of the nation was this +assembly I do not know, but that the sentiment in favor of such a +surrender of Montenegrin independence is far from being overwhelming +would seem to be proved by the fact that the Serbs, in order to hold the +territory thus given to them, have found it necessary to install a +Serbian military governor in Cetinje, to replace by Serbs all the +Montenegrin prefects, to raise a special gendarmerie recruited from men +who are known to be friendly to Serbia and officered by Serbs, and to +occupy this sister-state, which, it is alleged, requested union with +Serbia of its own free will, with two battalions of Serbian infantry. If +Montenegrin sentiment for the union is as overwhelming as Belgrade +claims, then it seems to me that the Serbs are acting in a rather +high-handed fashion. + +I talked with a good many people while I was in Montenegro, and I was +especially careful not to meet them through the medium of either Serbs +or Italians. From these conversations I learned that the Montenegrins +are divided into three factions. The first of these, and the smallest, +desires the return of the King. It represents the old conservative +element and is composed of the men who have fought under him in many +wars. The second faction, which is the noisiest and at present holds the +reins of power, advocates the annexation of Montenegro to Serbia and the +deposition of King Nicholas in favor of the Serbian Prince-Regent +Alexander. The third party, which, though it has no means of making its +desires known, is, I am inclined to believe, the largest, and which +numbers among its supporters the most level-headed and far-seeing men in +the country, while frankly distrustful of Serbian ambitions and +unwilling to submit to Serbian dictatorship, possesses sufficient vision +to recognize the political and commercial advantages which would accrue +to Montenegro were she to become an equal partner in a confederation of +those Jugoslav countries which claim the same racial origin. Most +thoughtful Montenegrins have always been in favor of a union of all the +southern Slavs, along the general lines, perhaps, of the Germanic +Confederation, but this must not be interpreted as implying that they +are in favor of a union merely of Montenegro with Serbia, which would +mean the absorption of the smaller country by the larger one. They are +determined that, if such a confederation is brought about, Serbia shall +not occupy the dictatorial position which Prussia did in Germany, and +that the Karageorgevitches shall not play a role analogous to that of +the Hohenzollerns. Montenegro, remember, threw off the Turkish yoke a +century and three-quarters before Serbia was able to achieve her +liberty, and the patriotic among her people feel that this hard-won, +long-held independence should not lightly be thrown away. + +It is not generally known, perhaps, that, when Austria declared war on +Serbia in August, 1914, an offensive and defensive alliance already +existed between Serbia, Greece, and Montenegro. We know how highly +Greece valued her signature to that treaty. Montenegro, with an area +two-thirds that of New Jersey, and a population less than that of +Milwaukee, could easily have used her weakness as an excuse for +standing aside, like Greece. Very likely Austria would not have molested +her and the little country would have been spared the horrors of a third +war within two years. But King Nicholas's conception of what constituted +loyalty and honor was different from Constantine's. Instead of accepting +the extensive territorial compensations offered by the Austrian envoy if +Montenegro would remain neutral, King Nicholas wired to the Serbian +Premier, M. Pachitch: "_Serbia may rely on the brotherly and +unconditional support of Montenegro in this moment, on which depends the +fate of the Serbian nation, as well as on any other occasion_," and took +the field at the head of 40,000 troops--all the men able to bear arms in +the little kingdom. + +It has been repeatedly asserted by his enemies that King Nicholas sold +out to the Austrians and that, therefore, he deserves neither sympathy +nor consideration. As to this I have no _direct_ knowledge. How could I? +But, after talking with nearly all of the leading actors in the +Montenegrin drama, it is my personal belief that the King, though guilty +of many indiscretions and errors of policy, did not betray his people. +I am not ignorant of the King's shortcomings in other respects. But in +this case I believe that he has been grossly maligned. If he did sell +out he drove an extremely poor bargain, for he is living in exile, in +extremely straitened circumstances, his only luxury a car which the +French Government loans him. It is difficult to believe that, had he +been a traitor to the Allied cause, the British, French, and Italian +governments would continue to recognize him, to pay him subventions, and +to treat him as a ruling sovereign. Certain American diplomats have told +me that they were convinced that the King had a secret understanding +with Austria, though they admitted quite frankly that their convictions +were based on suspicions which they could not prove. To offset this, a +very exalted personage, whose name for obvious reasons I cannot mention, +but whose integrity and whose sources of information are beyond +question, has given me his word that, to his personal knowledge, +Nicholas had neither a treaty nor a secret understanding with the enemy. + +"The propaganda against him had been so insidious and successful, +however," my informant concluded, "that even his own soldiers were +convinced that he had sold out to Austria and when the King attempted to +rally them as they were falling back from the positions on Mount +Lovtchen they jeered in his face, shouting that he had betrayed them. +Yet I, who was on the spot and who am familiar with all the facts, give +you my personal assurance that he had not." + +Nor did the King give up his sword to the Austrian commander at Grahovo, +as was reported in the European press. When, with three-quarters of his +country overrun by the Austrians, his chief of staff, Colonel Pierre +Pechitch of the Serbian Army, reported "_Henceforth all resistance and +all fighting against the enemy is impossible. There is no chance of the +situation improving_," King Nicholas, in the words of Baron Sonnino, +then Italian Foreign Minister, "preferred to withdraw into exile rather +than sign a separate peace." + +I may be wrong in my conclusions, of course; the cabinet ministers and +the ambassadors and the generals in whose honor and truthfulness I +believe may have deliberately deceived me, but, after a most +painstaking and conscientious investigation, I am convinced that we have +been misinformed and blinded by a propaganda against King Nicholas and +his people which has rarely been equaled in audacity of untruth and +dexterity of misrepresentation. To employ the methods used by certain +Balkan politicians in their attempted elimination of Montenegro as an +independent nation even Tammany Hall would be ashamed. + +When, upon the occupation of Montenegro by the Austrians, the King fled +to France and established his government at Neuilly, near Paris--just as +the fugitive Serbian Government was established at Corfu and the Belgian +at Le Havre--England, France, and Italy entered into an agreement to pay +him a subvention, for the maintenance of himself and his government, +until such time as the status of Montenegro was definitely settled by +the Peace Conference. England ceased paying her share of this subvention +early in the spring of 1919. When, a few weeks later, it was announced +that King Nicholas was preparing to go to Italy to visit his daughter, +Queen Elena, the French Minister to the court of Montenegro bluntly +informed him that the French Government regarded his proposed visit to +Italy as the first step toward his return to Montenegro, and that, +should he cross the French frontier, France would immediately break off +diplomatic relations with Montenegro and cease paying her share of the +subvention. This would seem to bear out the assertion, which I heard +everywhere in the Balkans, that France is bending every effort toward +building up a strong Jugoslavia in order to offset Italy's territorial +and commercial ambitions in the peninsula. The French indignantly +repudiate the suggestion that they are coercing the Montenegrin King. + +"How absurd!" exclaimed the officials with whom I talked. "We holding +King Nicholas a prisoner? The idea is preposterous. So far as France is +concerned, he can return to Montenegro whenever he chooses." + +Still, their protestations were not entirely convincing. Their attitude +reminded me of the millionaire whose daughter, it was rumored, had +eloped with the family chauffeur. + +"Sure, she can marry him if she wants to," he told the reporters. "I +have no objection. She is free, white, and twenty-one. But if she does +marry him I'll stop her allowance, cut her out of my will, and never +speak to her again." + +Because it has been my privilege to know many sovereigns and because I +have been honored with the confidence of several of them, I have become +to a certain extent immune from the spell which seems to be exercised +upon the commoner by personal contact with the Lord's anointed. Save +when I have had some definite mission to accomplish, I have never had +any overwhelming desire "to grasp the hand that shook the hand of John +L. Sullivan." To me it seems an impertinence to take the time of busy +men merely for the sake of being able to boast about it afterward to +your friends. But because, during my travels in Jugoslavia, I heard King +Nicholas repeatedly denounced by Serbian officials with far more +bitterness than they employed toward their late enemies and oppressors, +the Hapsburgs, I was frankly eager for an opportunity to form my own +opinions about Montenegro's aged ruler. The opportunity came when, upon +my return to Paris, I was informed that the King wished to meet me, he +being desirous, I suppose, of talking with one who had come so recently +from his own country. + +At that time the King, with the Queen, Prince Peter, and his two +unmarried daughters, was occupying a modest suite in the Hotel Meurice, +in the rue de Rivoli. He received me in a large, sun-flooded room +overlooking the Tuileries Gardens. The bald, broad-shouldered, rather +bent old man in the blue serge suit, with a tin ear-trumpet in his hand, +who rose from behind a great flat-topped desk to greet me, was a +startling contrast to the tall and vigorous figure, in the picturesque +dress of a Montenegrin chieftain, whom I had seen in Cetinje before the +war. I looked at him with interest, for he has been on the throne longer +than any living sovereign, he is the father-in-law of two Kings, and is +connected by marriage with half the royal houses of Europe, and he is +the last of that long line of patriarch-rulers who, leading their armies +in person, have for more than two centuries maintained the independence +of the Black Mountain and its people. + +[Illustration: HIS MAJESTY NICHOLAS I. KING OF MONTENEGRO + +He has been on the throne longer than any living sovereign, he is the +father-in-law of two kings, and is connected by marriage with half the +royal houses of Europe] + +King Nicholas, as is generally known, has been remarkably successful in +marrying off his daughters, two of them having married Kings, two +others grand dukes, while a fifth became the wife of a Battenberg +prince. Remembering this, I was sorely tempted to ask the King as to the +truth of a story which I had heard in Cetinje years before. An English +visitor to the Montenegrin capital had been invited to lunch at the +palace. During the meal the King asked his guest his impressions of +Montenegro. + +"Its scenery is magnificent," was the answer. "Its women are as +beautiful and its men as handsome as any I have ever seen. Their +costumes are marvelously picturesque. But the country appears to have no +exports, your Majesty." + +"Ah, my friend," replied the King, his eyes twinkling, "you forget my +daughters." + +Another story, which illustrates the King's quick wit, was told me by +his Majesty himself. When, some years before the Great War, Emperor +Francis Joseph, on a yachting cruise down the Adriatic, dropped anchor +in the Bocche di Cattaro, the Montenegrin mountaineers celebrated the +imperial visit by lighting bonfires on their mountain peaks, a mile +above the harbor. + +"I see that you dwell in the clouds," remarked Francis Joseph to +Nicholas, as they stood on the deck of the yacht after dinner watching +the pin-points of flame twinkling high above them. + +"Where else can I live?" responded the Montenegrin ruler. "Austria holds +the sea; Turkey holds the land; the sky is all that is left for +Montenegro." + +One of the things which the King told me during our conversation will, I +think, interest Americans. He said that when President Wilson arrived in +Paris he sent him an autograph letter, congratulating him on the great +part he had played in bringing peace to the world and requesting a +personal interview. + +"But he never granted me the interview," said the King sadly. "In fact, +he never acknowledged my letter." + +I attempted to bridge over the embarrassing pause by suggesting that +perhaps the letter had never been received, but he waved aside the +suggestion as unworthy of consideration. I gathered from what he said +that royal letters do not miscarry. + +"I realize that I am an old man and that my country is a very small and +unimportant one," he continued, "while your President is the ruler of a +great country and a very busy man. Still, we in Montenegro had heard so +much of America's chivalrous attitude toward small, weak nations that I +was unduly disappointed, perhaps, when my letter was ignored. I felt +that my age, and the fact that I have occupied the throne of Montenegro +for sixty years, entitled me to the consideration of a reply." + +But we have strayed far from the road which we were traveling. Let us +get back to the people of the mountains; I like them better than the +politicians. Antivari, which nestles in a hollow of the hills, three or +four miles inland from the port of the same name, is one of the most +fascinating little towns in all the Balkans. Its narrow, winding, +cobble-paved streets, shaded by canopies of grapevines and bordered by +rows of squat, red-tiled houses, their plastered walls tinted pale blue, +bright pink or yellow, and the amazingly picturesque costumes of its +inhabitants--slender, stately Montenegrin women in long coats of +turquoise-colored broad-cloth piped with crimson, Bosnians in skin-tight +breeches covered with arabesques of braid and jackets heavy with +embroidery, Albanians wearing the starched and pleated skirts of linen +known as _fustanellas_ and _comitadjis_ with cartridge-filled bandoliers +slung across their chests and their sashes bristling with assorted +weapons, priests of the Orthodox Church with uncut hair and beards, +wearing hats that look like inverted stovepipes, hook-nosed, +white-bearded, patriarchal-looking Turks in flowing robes and snowy +turbans, fierce-faced, keen-eyed mountain herdsmen in fur caps and coats +of sheepskin--all these combined to make me feel that I had intruded +upon the stage of a theater during a musical comedy performance, and +that I must find the exit and escape before I was discovered by the +stage-manager. If David Belasco ever visits Antivari he will probably +try to buy the place bodily and transport it to East Forty-fourth Street +and write a play around it. + +There were two gentlemen in Antivari whose actions gave me unalloyed +delight. One of them, so I was told, was the head of the local +anti-Serbian faction; the other, a human arsenal with weapons sprouting +from his person like leaves from an artichoke, was the chief of a +notorious band of _comitadjis_, as the Balkan guerrillas are called. +They walked up and down the main street of Antivari, arms over each +other's shoulders, heads close together, lost in conversation, but +glancing quickly over their shoulders every now and then to see if they +were in danger of being overheard, exactly like the plotters in a +motion-picture play. From the earnestness of their conversation, the +obvious awe in which they were held by the townspeople, and the +suspicious looks cast in their direction by the Serbian gendarmes, I +gathered that in the near future things were going to happen in that +region. Approaching them, I haltingly explained, in the few words of +Serbian at my command, that I was an American and that I wished to +photograph them. Upon comprehending my request they debated the question +for some moments, then shook their heads decisively. It was evident +that, in view of what they had in mind, they considered it imprudent to +have their pictures floating around as a possible means of +identification. But while they were discussing the matter I took the +liberty, without their knowledge, of photographing them anyway. It was +as well, perhaps, that they did not see me do it, for the _comitadji_ +chieftain had a long knife, two revolvers, and four hand-grenades in +his belt and a rifle slung over his shoulder. + +From Antivari to Valona by sea is about as far as from New York to +Albany by the Hudson, so that, leaving the Montenegrin port in the early +morning, we had no difficulty in reaching the Albanian one before +sunset. Before the war Valona--which, by the way, appears as Avlona on +most American-made maps--was an insignificant fishing village, but upon +Italy's occupation of Albania it became a military base of great +importance. Whenever we had touched on our journey down the coast we had +been warned against going to Valona because of the danger of contracting +fever. The town stands on the edge of a marsh bordering the shore and, +as no serious attempt has been made to drain the marsh or to clean up +the town itself, about sixty per cent of the troops stationed there are +constantly suffering from a peculiarly virulent form of malaria, similar +to the Chagres fever of the Isthmus. The danger of contracting it was +apparently considered very real, for, before we had been an hour in the +quarters assigned to us, officers began to arrive with safeguards of one +sort or another. One brought screens for all the windows; another +provided mosquito-bars for the beds; a third presented us with +disinfectant cubes, which we were to burn in our rooms several times +each day; a fourth made us a gift of quinine pills, two of which we were +to take hourly; still another of our hosts appeared with a dozen bottles +of _acqua minerale_ and warned us not to drink the local water, and, +finally, to ensure us against molestation by prowling natives, a couple +of sentries were posted beneath our windows. + +[Illustration: TWO CONSPIRATORS OF ANTIVARI + +They stood lost in conversation, heads close together, exactly like the +plotters in a motion picture play] + +"Valona isn't a particularly healthy place to live in, I gather?" I +remarked, by way of making conversation, to the officer who was our host +at dinner that evening. His face was as yellow as old parchment and he +was shaking with fever. + +"Well," he reluctantly admitted, "you must be careful not to be bitten +by a mosquito or you will get malaria. And don't drink the water or you +will contract typhoid. And keep away from the native quarter, for there +is always more or less smallpox in the bazaars. And don't go wandering +around the town after nightfall, for there's always a chance of some +fanatic putting a knife between your shoulders. Otherwise, there isn't +a healthier place in the world than Valona." + +Across the street from the building in which we were quartered was a +large mosque, which, judging from the scaffoldings around it, was under +repair. But though it seemed to be a large and important mosque, there +was no work going forward on it. I commented upon this one day to an +officer with whom I was walking. + +"Do you see those storks up there?" he asked, pointing to a pair of +long-legged birds standing beside their nest on the dome of the mosque. +"The stork is the sacred bird of Albania and if it makes its nest on a +building which is in course of construction all work on that building +ceases as long as the stork remains. A barracks we were erecting was +held up for several months because a stork decided to make its nest in +the rafters, whereupon the native workmen threw down their tools and +quit." + +"In my country it is just the opposite," I observed. "There, when the +stork comes, instead of stopping work they usually begin building a +nursery." + +I had long wished to cross Albania and Macedonia, from the Adriatic to +the AEgean, by motor, but the nearer we had drawn to Albania the more +unlikely this project had seemed of realization. We were assured that +there were no roads in the interior of the country or that such roads as +existed were quite impassable for anything save ox-carts; that the +country had been devastated by the fighting armies and that it would be +impossible to get food en route; that the mountains we must cross were +frequented by bandits and _comitadjis_ and that we would be exposed to +attack and capture; that, though the Italians might see us across +Albania, the Serbian and Greek frontier guards would not permit us to +enter Macedonia, and, as a final argument against the undertaking, we +were warned that the whole country reeked with fever. But when I told +the Governor-General of Albania, General Piacentini, what I wished to do +every obstacle disappeared as though at the wave of a magician's wand. + +"You will leave Valona early to-morrow morning," he said, after a short +conference with his Chief of Staff. "You will be accompanied by an +officer of my staff who was with the Serbian army on its retreat across +Albania to the sea. The country is well garrisoned and I do not +anticipate the slightest trouble, but, as a measure of precaution, a +detachment of soldiers will follow your car in a motor-truck. You will +spend the first night at Argirocastro, the second at Ljaskoviki, and the +third at Koritza, which is occupied by the French. I will wire our +diplomatic agent there to make arrangements with the Jugoslav +authorities for you to cross the Serbian border to Monastir, where we +still have a few troops engaged in salvage work. South of Monastir you +will be in Greek territory, but I will wire the officer in command of +the Italian forces at Salonika to take steps to facilitate your journey +across Macedonia to the AEgean." + +This journey across one of the most savage and least-known regions in +all Europe was arranged as simply and matter-of-factly as a clerk in a +tourist bureau would plan a motor trip through the White Mountains. With +the exception of one or two alterations in the itinerary made necessary +by tire trouble, the journey was made precisely as General Piacentini +planned it and so complete were the arrangements we found that meals +and sleeping quarters had been prepared for us in tiny mountain hamlets +whose very names we had never so much as heard before. + +Until its occupation by the Italians in 1917 Albania was not only the +least-known region in Europe; it was one of the least-known regions in +the world. Within sight of Italy, it was less known than many portions +of Central Asia or Equatorial Africa. And it is still a savage country; +a land but little changed since the days of Constantine and Diocletian; +a land that for more than twenty centuries has acknowledged no master +and, until the coming of the Italians, had known no law. Prior to the +Italian occupation there was no government in Albania in the sense in +which that word is generally used, there being, in fact, no civil +government now, the tribal organization which takes its place being +comparable to that which existed in Scotland under the Stuart Kings. + +The term Albanian would probably pass unrecognized by the great majority +of the inhabitants, who speak of themselves as _Skipetars_ and of their +country as _Sccupnj_. They are, most ethnologists agree, probably the +most ancient race in Europe, there being every reason to believe that +they are the lineal descendants of those adventurous Aryans who, leaving +the ancestral home on the shores of the Caspian, crossed the Caucasus +and entered Europe in the earliest dawn of history. One of the tribes of +this migrating host, straying into these lonely valleys, settled there +with their flocks and herds, living the same life, speaking the same +tongue, following the same customs as their Aryan ancestors, quite +indifferent to the great changes which were taking place in the world +without their mountain wall. Certain it is that Albania was already an +ancient nation when Greek history began. Unlike the other primitive +populations of the Balkan peninsula, which became in time either +Hellenized, Latinized or Slavonicized, the Albanians have remained +almost unaffected by foreign influences. It strikes me as a strange +thing that the courage and determination with which this remarkable race +has maintained itself in its mountain stronghold all down the ages, and +the grim and unyielding front which it has shown to innumerable +invaders, have evoked so little appreciation and admiration in the +outside world. History contains no such epic as that of the Albanian +national hero, George Castriota, better known as Scanderbeg, who, with +his ill-armed mountaineers, overwhelmed twenty-three Ottoman armies, one +after another.[A] + +Picture, if you please, a country remarkably similar in its physical +characteristics to the Blue Ridge Region of our own South, with the same +warm summers and the same brief, cold winters, peopled by the same +poverty-stricken, illiterate, quarrelsome, suspicious, arms-bearing, +feud-practising race of mountaineers, and you will have the best +domestic parallel of Albania that I can give you. Though during the +summer months extremely hot days are followed by bitterly cold nights, +and though fever is prevalent along the coast and in certain of the +valleys, Albania is, climatically speaking, "a white man's country." Its +mountains are believed to contain iron, coal, gold, lead, and copper, +but the internal condition of the country has made it quite impossible +to investigate its mineral resources, much less to develop them. With +the exception of Valona, which has been developed into a tolerably good +harbor, there are no ports worthy of the name, Durazzo, Santi Quaranta, +and San Giovanni de Medua being mere open roadsteads, almost unprotected +from the sea winds. There are no railroads in Albania, and the +indifference of the Turkish Government, the corruption of the local +chiefs, and the blood-feuds in which the people are almost constantly +engaged, have resulted in a total absence of good roads. This condition +has been remedied by the Italians, however, who, in order to facilitate +their military operations, constructed a system of highways very nearly +equal to those they built in the Alps. Though the greater part of the +country is a stranger to the plow, the small areas which are under +cultivation produce excellent olive oil, wine of a tolerable quality, a +strong but moderately good tobacco, and considerable grain; Albania, in +spite of its primitive agricultural methods, furnishing most of the corn +supply of the Dalmatian coast. + +Albania, so far as I am aware, is the only country where you can buy a +wife on the instalment plan, just as you would buy a piano or an +encyclopedia or a phonograph. It is quite true that there are plenty of +countries where women can be purchased--in Circassia, for example, and +in China, and in the Solomon Group--but in those places the prospective +bridegroom is compelled to pay down the purchase price in cash, not +being afforded the convenience of opening an account. In Albania, +however, such things are better done, a partial payment on the purchase +price of the girl being paid to her parents when the engagement takes +place, after which she is no longer offered for sale, but is set aside, +like an article on which a deposit has been made, until the final +instalment has been paid, when she is delivered to her future husband. + +Albania is likewise the only country that I know of where every one +concerned becomes indignant if a murderer is sent to prison. The +relatives of the dear departed resent it because they feel that the +judge has cheated them out of their revenge, which they would probably +obtain, were the murderer at large, by putting a knife or a pistol +bullet between his shoulders. The murderer, of course, objects to the +sentence both because he does not like imprisonment and because he +believes that he could escape from the relatives of his victim were he +given his freedom. If he or his friends have any money, however, the +affair is usually settled on a financial basis, the feud is called off, +the murderer is pardoned, and every one concerned, save only the dead +man, is as pleased and friendly as though nothing had ever happened to +interrupt their friendly relations. A quaint people, the Albanians. + +In order to develop the resources of the country and to transform its +present poverty into prosperity, Italy has already inaugurated an +extensive scheme of public works, which includes the reclamation of the +marshes, the reforestation of the mountains, the reconstruction of the +highways, the improvement of the ports, and the construction of a +railway straight across Albania, from the coast at Durazzo to Monastir, +in Serbian Macedonia, where it will connect with the line from Belgrade +to Salonika. This railway will follow the route of one of the most +important arteries of the Roman Empire, the Via Egnatia, that mighty +military and commercial highway, a trans-Adriatic continuation of the +Via Appia, which, starting from Dyracchium, the modern Durazzo, crossed +the Cavaia plain to the Skumbi, climbed the slopes of the Candavian +range, and traversing Macedonia and Thrace, ended at the Bosphorus, thus +linking the capitals of the western and the eastern empires. We traveled +this age-old highway, down which the four-horse chariots of the Caesars +had rumbled two thousand years ago, in another sort of chariot, with the +power of twenty times four horses beneath its sloping hood. This will +entitle us in future years to listen with the condescension of pioneers +to the tales of the tourists who make the same trans-Balkan journey in a +comfortable _wagon-lit_, with hot and cold running water and electric +lights and a dining-car ahead. It is a great thing to have seen a +country in the pioneer stage of its existence. + +In that portion of Southern Albania known as North Epirus we motored for +an entire day through a region dotted with what had been, apparently, +fairly prosperous towns and villages but which are now heaps of +fire-blackened ruins. This wholesale devastation, I was informed to my +astonishment, was the work of the Greeks, who, at about the time the +Germans were horrifying the civilized world by their conduct in +Belgium, were doing precisely the same thing, it is said, but on a far +more extensive scale, in Albania. As a result of these atrocities, +perpetrated by a so-called Christian and professedly civilized nation, a +large number of Albanian towns and villages were destroyed by fire or +dynamite. Though I have been unable to obtain any reliable figures, the +consensus of opinion among the Albanians, the French and Italian +officials, and the American missionaries and relief workers with whom I +talked is that between 10,000 and 12,000 men, women, and children were +shot, bayoneted, or burned to death, at least double that number died +from exposure and starvation, and an enormous number--I have heard the +figure placed as high as 200,000--were rendered homeless. The stories +which I heard of the treatment to which the Albanian women were +subjected are so revolting as to be unprintable. We spent a night at +Ljaskoviki (also spelled Gliascovichi, Leskovik and Liascovik), +three-quarters of which had been destroyed. Out of a population which, I +was told, originally numbered about 8,000, only 1,200 remain. + +[Illustration: THE HEAD MEN OF LJASKOVIKI, ALBANIA, WAITING TO BID MAJOR +AND MRS. POWELL FAREWELL] + +Though the great majority of the victims were Mohammedans, the +outrages were not directly due to religious causes but were inspired +mainly by greed for territory. When, upon the erection of Albania into +an independent kingdom in 1913, the Greeks were ordered by the Powers to +withdraw from North Epirus, on which they had been steadily encroaching +and which they had come to look upon as inalienably their own, they are +reported to have begun a systematic series of outrages upon the civil +population of the region for which a fitting parallel can be found only +in the Turkish massacres in Armenia or the horrors of Bolshevik rule in +Russia. In their determination to secure Southern Albania for +themselves, the Greeks apparently adopted the policy followed with such +success in Armenia by the Turks, who asserted cynically that "one cannot +make a state without inhabitants." + +I do not think that the Greeks attempt to deny these atrocities--the +evidence is far too conclusive for that--but even as great a Greek as M. +Venizelos justifies them on the ground that they were provoked by the +Albanians. That such things could happen without arousing horror and +condemnation throughout the civilized world is due to the fact that in +the summer of 1914 the attention of the world was focused on events in +France and Belgium. I have no quarrel with the Greeks and nothing is +further from my desire than to engage in what used to be known as +"muck-raking," but I am reporting what I saw and heard in Albania +because I believe that the American people ought to know of it. Taken in +conjunction with the behavior of the Greek troops in Smyrna in the +spring of 1918, it should better enable us to form an opinion as to the +moral fitness of the Greeks to be entrusted with mandates over backward +peoples. + +Though Albania is an Italian protectorate, the Albanians, in spite of +all that Italy is doing toward the development of the country, do not +want Italian protection. This is scarcely to be wondered at, however, in +view of the attitude of another untutored people, the Egyptians, who, +though they owe their amazing prosperity solely to British rule, would +oust the British at the first opportunity which offered. Though the +Italians are distrusted because the Albanians question their +administrative ability and because they fear that they will attempt to +denationalize them, the French are regarded with a hatred which I have +seldom seen equaled. This is due, I imagine, to the belief that the +French are allied with their hereditary enemies, the Greeks and the +Serbs, and to France's iron-handed rule, which was exemplified when +General Sarrail, commanding the army of the Orient, ordered the +execution of the President of the short-lived Albanian Republic which +was established at Koritza. As a matter of fact, the Albanians, though +quite unfitted for independence, are violently opposed to being placed +under the protection of any nation, unless it be the United States or +England, in both of which they place implicit trust. I was astonished to +learn that the few Americans who have penetrated Albania since the +war--missionaries, Red Cross workers, and one or two investigators for +the Peace Conference--have encouraged the natives in the belief that the +United States would probably accept a mandate for Albania. Whether they +did this in order to make themselves popular and thereby facilitate +their missions, or because of an abysmal ignorance of American public +sentiment, I do not know, but the fact remains that they have raised +hopes in the breasts of thousands of Albanians which can never be +realized. Everything considered, I think that the Albanians might do +worse than to entrust their political future to the guidance of the +Italians, who, in addition to having brought law, order, justice, and +the beginnings of prosperity to a country which never had so much as a +bowing acquaintance with any one of them before, seem to have the best +interests of the people genuinely at heart. + +Leaving Koritza, a clean, well-kept town of perhaps 10,000 people, which +was occupied when we were there by a battalion of black troops from the +French Sudan and some Moroccans, we went snorting up the Peristeri Range +by an appallingly steep and narrow road, higher, higher, always higher, +until, to paraphrase Kipling, we had + + "One wheel on the Horns o' the Mornin', + An' one on the edge o' the Pit, + An' a drop into nothin' beneath us + As straight as a beggar could spit." + +But at last, when I was beginning to wonder whether our wheels could +find traction if the grade grew much steeper, we topped the summit of +the pass and looked down on Macedonia. Below us the forested slopes of +the mountains ran down, like the folds of a great green rug lying +rumpled on an oaken floor, to meet the bare brown plains of that +historic land where marched and fought the hosts of Philip of Macedon, +and of Alexander, his son. There are few more splendid panoramas in the +world; there is none over which history has cast so magic a spell, for +this barren, dusty land has been the arena in which the races of eastern +Europe have battled since history began. Within its borders are +represented all the peoples who are disputing the reversion of the +Turkish possessions in Europe. Macedonia might be described, indeed, as +the very quintessence of the near eastern question. + +With brakes a-squeal we slipped down the long, steep gradients to +Florina, where Greek gendarmes, in British sun-helmets and khaki, +lounged at the street-crossings and patronizingly waved us past. Thence +north by the ancient highway which leads to Monastir, the parched and +yellow fields on either side still littered with the debris of +war--broken _camions_ and wagons, shattered cannon, pyramids of +ammunition-cases, vast quantities of barbed wire--and sprinkled with +white crosses, thousands and thousands of them, marking the places where +sleep the youths from Britain, France, Italy, Russia, Serbia, Canada, +India, Australia, Africa, who fell in the Last Crusade. + +Monastir is a filthy, ill-paved, characteristically Turkish town, which, +before its decimation by the war, was credited with having some 60,000 +inhabitants. Of these about one-half were Turks and one-quarter Greeks, +the remaining quarter of the inhabitants being composed of Serbs, Jews, +Albanians, and Bulgars. Those of its buildings which escaped the great +conflagration which destroyed half the town were terribly shattered by +the long series of bombardments, so that to-day the place looks like San +Francisco after the earthquake and Baltimore after the fire. In the +suburbs are immense supplies of war _materiel_ of all sorts, mostly +going to waste. I saw thousands of camions, ambulances, caissons, and +wagons literally falling apart from neglect, and this in a country which +is almost destitute of transport. Though the town was packed with +Serbian troops, most of whom are sleeping and eating in the open, no +attempt was being made, so far as I could see, to repair the shell-torn +buildings, to clean the refuse-littered streets, or to afford the +inhabitants even the most nominal police protection. The crack of rifles +and revolvers is as frequent in the streets of Monastir as the bang of +bursting tires on Fifth Avenue. A Serbian sentry, on duty outside the +house in which I was sleeping, suddenly loosed off a clip of cartridges +in the street, for no reason in the world, it seemed, than because he +liked to hear the noise! Dead bodies are found nearly every morning. +Murders are so common that they do not provoke even passing comment. In +the night there comes a sharp bark of an automatic or the shattering +roar of a hand-grenade (which, since the war proved its efficacy, has +become the most recherche weapon for private use in these regions), a +clatter of feet, and a "Hello! Another killing." That is all. Life is +the cheapest thing there is in the Balkans. + +The only really clean place we found in Monastir was the American Red +Cross Hospital, an extremely well-managed and efficient institution, +which was under the direction of a young American woman, Dr. Frances +Flood, who, with a single woman companion, Miss Jessup, pluckily +remained at her post throughout the greater part of the war. The +officers who during the war achieved rows of ribbons for having acted as +messenger boys between the War Department and the foreign military +missions in Washington, would feel a trifle embarrassed, I imagine, if +they knew what this little American woman did to win _her_ decorations. + +It is in the neighborhood of one hundred and fifty miles from Monastir +to Salonika across the Macedonian plain and the road is one of the very +worst in Europe. Deep ruts, into which the car sometimes slipped almost +to its hubs, and frequent gullies made driving, save at the most +moderate speed, impossible, while, as many of the bridges were broken, +and without signs to warn the travelers of their condition, we more than +once barely saved ourselves from plunging through the gaping openings to +disaster. The vast traffic of the fighting armies had ground the roads +into yellow dust which rose in clouds as dense as a London fog, while +the waves of heat from the sun-scorched plains beat against our faces +like the blast from an open furnace door. Despite its abominable +condition, the road was alive with traffic: droves of buffalo, black, +ungainly, broad-horned beasts, their elephant-like hides caked with +yellow mud; woolly waves of sheep and goats driven by wild mountain +herdsmen in high fur caps and gaudy sashes; caravans of camels, swinging +superciliously past on padded feet, laden with supplies for the interior +or salvaged war material for the coast; clumsy carts, painted in strange +designs and screaming colors, with great sharpened stakes which looked +as though they were intended for purposes of torture, but whose real +duty is to keep the top-heavy loads in place. + +Though the slopes of the Rhodope and the Pindus are clothed with +splendid forests, it is for the most part a flat and treeless land, +dotted with clusters of filthy hovels made of sun-dried brick and with +patches of discouraged-looking vegetation. As Macedonia (its inhabitants +pronounce it as though the first syllable were _mack_) was once the +granary of the East, I had expected to see illimitable fields of waving +grain, but such fields as we did see were generally small and poor. +Guarding them against the hovering swarms of blackbirds were many +scarecrows, rigged out in the uniforms and topped by the helmets of the +men whose bones bleach amid the grain. In Switzerland they make a very +excellent red wine called _Schweizerblut_, because the grapes from which +it is made are grown on soil reddened by the blood of the Swiss who fell +on the battlefield of Morat. If blood makes fine wine, then the best +wine in all the world should come from these Macedonian plains, for they +have been soaked with blood since ever time began. + +Our halfway town was Vodena, which seemed, after the heat and dust of +the journey, like an oasis in the desert. Scores of streams, issuing +from the steep slopes of the encircling hills, race through the town in +a network of little canals and fling themselves from a cliff, in a +series of superb cascades, into the wooded valley below. Philip of +Macedon was born near Vodena, and there, in accordance with his wishes, +he was buried. You can see the tomb, flanked by ever-burning candles, +though you may not enter it, should you happen to pass that way. He +chose his last resting-place well, did the great soldier, for the +overarching boughs of ancient plane-trees turn the cobbled streets of +the little town into leafy naves, the air is heavy with the scent of +orange and oleander, and the place murmurs with the pleasant sound of +plashing water. + +Beyond Vodena the road improved for a time and we fled southward at +greater speed, the telegraph poles leaping at us out of the yellow +dust-haze like the pikes of giant sentinels. At Alexander's Well, an +ancient cistern built from marble blocks and filled with crystal-clear +water, we paused to refill our boiling radiator, and paused again, a few +miles farther on, at the wretched, mud-walled village which, according +to local tradition, is the birthplace of the man who made himself master +of three continents, changed the face of the world, and died at +thirty-three. + +Then south again, south again, across the seemingly illimitable plains, +until, topping a range of bare brown hills, there lay spread before us +the gleaming walls and minarets of that city where Paul preached to the +Thessalonians. To the westward Olympus seemed to verify the assertions +of the ancient Greeks that its summit touched the sky. To the east, +outlined against the AEgean's blue, I could see the peninsula of +Chalkis, with its three gaunt capes, Cassandra, Longos, and Athos, +reaching toward Thrace, the Hellespont and Asia Minor, like the claw of +a vulture stretched out to snatch the quarry which the eagles killed. + +[Footnote A: Portions of this sketch of the Albanians are drawn from an +article which I wrote some years ago for _The Independent_. E.A.P.] + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +UNDER THE CROSS AND THE CRESCENT + + +Salonika is superbly situated. To gain it from the seaward side you sail +through a portal formed by the majestic peaks of Athos and Olympus. It +reclines on the bronze-brown Macedonian hills, white-clad, like a young +Greek goddess, with its feet laved by the blue waters of the AEgean. (I +have used this simile elsewhere in the book, but it does not matter.) +The scores of slender minarets which rise above the housetops belie the +crosses on the Greek flags which flaunt everywhere, hinting that the +city, though it has passed under Christian rule, is at heart still +Moslem. Indeed, barely a tenth of the 200,000 inhabitants are of the +ruling race, for Salonika is that rare thing in modern Europe, a city +whose population is by majority Jewish. There were hook-nosed, +dark-skinned traders from Judea here, no doubt, as far back as the days +when Salonika was but a way-station on the great highroad which linked +the East with Rome, but it was the Jews expelled from Spain by Ferdinand +and Isabella who transformed the straggling Turkish town into one of the +most prosperous cities of the Levant by making it their home. And to-day +the Jewish women of Salonika, the older ones at least, wear precisely +the same costume that their great-grandmother wore in Spain before the +persecution--a symbol and a reminder of how the Israelites were hunted +by the Christians before they found refuge in a Moslem land. + +There are no less than eight distinct ways of spelling and pronouncing +the city's name. To the Greeks, who are its present owners, it is +Saloniki or Saloneke, according to the method of transliterating the +_epsilon_; it is known to the Turks, who misruled it for five hundred +years, as Selanik; the British call it Salonica, with the accent on the +second syllable; the French Salonique; the Italians Salonnico, while the +Serbs refer to it as Solun. The best authorities seem to have agreed, +however, on Salonika, with the accent on the "i," which is pronounced +like "e," so that it rhymes with "paprika." But these are all +corruptions and abbreviations, for the city was originally named +Thessalonica, after the sister of Alexander of Macedon, and thus +referred to in the two epistles which St. Paul addressed to the church +he founded there. Owing to the variety of its religious sects, Salonika +has a superfluity of Sabbaths as well as of names, Friday being observed +by the Moslems, Saturday by the Jews, and Sunday by the Christians. +Perhaps it would be putting it more accurately to say that there is no +Sabbath at all, for the inhabitants are so eager to make money that +business is transacted on every day of the seven. + +Besides the great colony of Orthodox Jews in Salonika, there is a sect +of renegades known as Dounme, or Deunmeh, who number perhaps 20,000 in +all. These had their beginnings in the _Annus Mirabilis_, when a Jewish +Messiah, Sabatai Sevi of Smyrna, arose in the Levant. He preached a +creed which was a first cousin of those believed in by our own +Anabaptists and Seventh Day Adventists. The name and the fame of him +spread across the Near East like fire in dry grass. Every ghetto in +Turkey had accepted him; his ritual was adopted by every synagogue; the +Jews gave themselves over to penance and preparation. For a year honesty +reigned in the Levant. Then the prophet set out for Constantinople to +beard the Sultan in his palace and, so he announced, to lead him in +chains to Zion. That was where Sabatai Sevi made his big mistake. For +the Commander of the Faithful was from Missouri, so far as Sabatai +Sevi's claims to divinity were concerned. + +"Messiahs can perform miracles," the Sultan said. "Let me see you +perform one. My Janissaries shall make a target of you. If you are of +divine origin, as you claim, the arrows will not harm you. And, in any +event, it will be an interesting experiment." + +[Illustration: THE ANCIENT WALLS OF SALONIKA + +Before us we saw the yellow walls and crenellated towers of that city +where Paul preached to the Thessalonians] + +Now Sabatai evidently had grave doubts about his self-assumed divinity +being arrow-proof, for he protested vigorously against the proposal to +make a human pin-cushion of him, whereupon the Sultan, his suspicions +now confirmed, gave him his choice between being impaled upon a stake, a +popular Turkish pastime of the period, or of renouncing Judaism and +accepting the faith of Islam. Preferring to be a live coward to an +impaled martyr, he chose the latter, yet such was his influence with +the Jews that thousands of his adherents voluntarily embraced the +religion of Mohammed. The Dounme of Salonika are the descendants of +these renegades. Two centuries of waiting have not dimmed their faith in +the eventual coming of their Messiah. So there they wait, equally +distrusted by Jews and Moslems, though they form the wealthiest portion +of the city's population. But they live apart and so dread any mixing of +their blood with that of the infidel Turk or the unbelieving Jew that, +in order to avoid the risk of an unwelcome proposal, they make a +practise of betrothing their children before they are born. It strikes +me, however, that there must on occasion be a certain amount of +embarrasment connected with these early matches, as, for example, when +the prenatally engaged ones prove to be of the same sex. + +I used to be of the opinion that Tiflis, in the Caucasus, was the most +cosmopolitan city that I had ever seen, but since the war I think that +the greatest variety of races could probably be found in Salonika. Sit +at a marble-topped table on the pavement in front of Floca's cafe at +the tea-hour and you can see representatives of half the races in the +world pass by--British officers in beautifully polished boots and +beautifully cut breeches, astride of beautifully groomed ponies; +Highlanders with their kilts covered by khaki aprons; raw-boned, +red-faced Australians in sun helmets and shorts; swaggering _chausseurs +d'Afrique_ in wonderful uniforms of sky-blue and scarlet which you will +find nowhere else outside a musical comedy; soldiers of the Foreign +Legion with the skirts of their long blue overcoats pinned back and with +mushroom-shaped helmets which are much too large for them; soldierly, +well set-up little Ghurkas in broad-brimmed hats and uniforms of olive +green, reminding one for all the world of fighting cocks; Sikhs in +yellow khaki (did you know, by the way, that _khaki_ is the Hindustani +word for dust?) with their long black beards neatly plaited and rolled +up under their chins; Epirotes wearing the starched and plaited skirts +called _fustanellas_, each of which requires from twenty to forty yards +of linen; Albanian tribal chiefs in jackets stiff with gold embroidery, +with enough weapons thrust in their gaudy sashes to decorate a +club-room; Cretan gendarmes wearing breeches which are so tight below +the knee and so enormously baggy in the seat that they can, and when +they are in Crete frequently do, use them in place of a basket for +carrying their poultry, eggs or other farm produce to market; coal-black +Senegalese, coffee-colored Moroccans and tan-colored Algerians, all +wearing the broad red cummerbunds and the high red tarbooshes which +distinguish France's African soldiery; Italian _bersaglieri_ with great +bunches of cocks' feathers hiding their steel helmets; Serbs in +ununiform uniforms of every conceivable color, material and pattern, +their only uniform article of equipment being their characteristic +high-crowned _kepis_; Russians in flat caps and belted blouses, their +baggy trousers tucked into boots with ankles like accordions; officers +of Cossack cavalry, their tall and slender figures accentuated by their +long, tight-fitting coats and their high caps of lambskin; Bulgar +prisoners wearing the red-banked caps which they have borrowed from +their German allies and Austrian prisoners in worn and shabby uniforms +of grayish-blue; Greek soldiers bedecked like Christmas trees with +medals, badges, fourrageres and chevrons, in the hope, I suppose, that +their gaudiness would make up for their lack of prowess; Orthodox +priests with their long hair (for they never cut their hair or beards) +done up in Psyche knots; Hebrew rabbis wearing caps of velvet shaped +like those worn by bakers; Moslem muftis with their snowy turbans +encircled by green scarves as a sign that they had made the pilgrimage +to the Holy Places; Jewish merchants and money-changers in the same +black caps and greasy gabardines which their ancestors wore in the +Middle Ages; British, French, Italian and American bluejackets with +their caps cocked jauntily and the roll of the sea in their gait; +A.R.A., A.R.C., Y.M.C.A., K. of C. and A.C.R.N.E. workers in fancy +uniforms of every cut and color; Turkish sherbet-sellers with huge brass +urns, hung with tinkling bells to give notice of their approach, slung +upon their backs; ragged Macedonian bootblacks (bootblacking appeared to +be the national industry of Macedonia), and hordes of gipsy beggars, the +filthiest and most importunate I have ever seen. All day long this +motley, colorful crowd surges through the narrow streets, their voices, +speaking in a score of tongues, raising a din like that of Bedlam; the +smells of unwashed bodies, human perspiration, strong tobacco, rum, +hashish, whiskey, arrack, goat's cheese, garlic, cheap perfumery and +sweat-soaked leather combining in a stench which rises to high Heaven. + +On the streets one sees almost as many colored soldiers as white ones: +French native troops from Algeria, Morocco, Madagascar, Senegal and +China; British Indian soldiery from Bengal, the Northwest Provinces and +Nepaul. The Indian troops were superbly drilled and under the most iron +discipline, but the French native troops appeared to be getting out of +hand and were not to be depended upon. To a man they had announced that +they wanted to go home. They had been through four and a half years of +war, they are tired and homesick, and they are more than willing to let +the Balkan peoples settle their own quarrels. They were weary of +fighting in a quarrel of which they knew little and about which they +cared less; they longed for a sight of the wives and the children they +had left behind them in Fez or Touggourt or Timbuktu. Because they had +been kept on duty in Europe, while the French white troops were being +rapidly demobilized and returned to their homes, the Africans were +sullen and resentful. This smoldering resentment suddenly burst into +flame, a day or so before we reached Salonika, when a Senegalese +sergeant, whose request to be sent home had been refused, ran amuck, +barricaded himself in a stone outhouse with a plentiful supply of rifles +and ammunition, and succeeded in killing four officers and half-a-dozen +soldiers before his career was ended by a well-aimed hand grenade. A few +days later a British officer was shot and killed in the camp outside the +city by a Ghurka sentinel. This was not due to mutiny, however, but, on +the contrary, to over-strict obedience to orders, the sentry having been +instructed that he was to permit no one to cross his post without +challenging. The officer, who was fresh from England and had had no +experience with the discipline of Indian troops, ignored the order to +halt--and the next day there was a military funeral. + +Salonika is theoretically under Greek rule and there are pompous, +self-important little Greek policemen, perfect replicas of the British +M.P.'s in everything save physique and discipline, on duty at the street +crossings, but instead of regulating the enormous flow of traffic they +seem only to obstruct it. When the congestion becomes so great that it +threatens to hold up the unending stream of motor-lorries which rolls +through the city, day and night, between the great cantonments in the +outskirts and the port, a tall British military policeman suddenly +appears from nowhere, shoulders the Greek gendarme aside, and with a few +curt orders untangles the snarl into which the traffic has gotten itself +and sets it going again. + +Picturesque though Salonika undeniably is, with its splendid mosques, +its beautiful Byzantine churches, its Roman triumphal arches, and the +brooding bulk of Mount Olympus, which overshadows and makes trivial +everything else, yet the strongest impressions one carries away are +filth, corruption and misgovernment. These conditions are due in some +measure, no doubt, to the refusal of the European troops, with whom the +city is filled, to take orders from any save their own officers, but the +underlying reason is to be found in the indifference and gross +incompetence of the Greek authorities. The Greeks answer this by saying +that they have not had time to clean the city up and give it a decent +administration because they have owned it only eight years. All of the +European business quarter, including a mile of handsome buildings along +the waterfront, lies in ruins as a result of the great fire of 1917. +Though a system of new streets has been tentatively laid out across this +fire-swept area, no attempt has been made to rebuild the city, hundreds +of shopkeepers carrying on their businesses in shacks and booths erected +amid the blackened and tottering walls. All of the hotels worthy of the +name were destroyed in the fire, the two or three which escaped being +quite uninhabitable, at least for Europeans, because of the armies of +insects with which they are infested. I do not recall hearing any one +say a good word for Salonika. The pleasantest recollection which I +retain of the place is that of the steamer which took us away from +there. + +Before we could leave Salonika for Constantinople our passports had to +be vised by the representatives of five nations. In fact, travel in the +Balkans since the war is just one damn vise after another. The Italians +stamped them because we had come from Albania, which is under Italian +protection. The Serbs put on their imprint because we had stopped for a +few days in Monastir. The Greeks affixed their stamp--and collected +handsomely for doing so--because, theoretically at least, Salonika, +whose dust we were shaking from our feet, belongs to them. The French +insisted on viseing our papers in order to show their authority and +because they needed the ten francs. The British control officer told me +that I really didn't need his vise, but that he would put it on anyway +because it would make the passports look more imposing. Because we were +going to Constantinople and Bucharest, whereas our passports were made +out for "the Balkan States," the American Consul would not vise them at +all, on the ground that neither Turkey nor Roumania is in the Balkans. +About Roumania he was technically correct, but I think most geographers +place European Turkey in the Balkans. As things turned out, however, it +was all labor lost and time thrown away, for we landed in Constantinople +as untroubled by officials and inspectors as though we were stepping +ashore at Twenty-third Street from a Jersey City ferry. + +There were no regular sailings from Salonika for Constantinople, but, +by paying a hundred dollars for a ticket which in pre-war days cost +twenty, we succeeded in obtaining passage on an Italian tramp steamer. +The _Padova_ was just such a cargo tub as one might expect to find +plying between Levantine ports. Though we occupied an officer's cabin, +for which we were charged _Mauretania_ rates, it was very far from being +as luxurious as it sounds, for I slept upon a mattress laid upon three +chairs and the mattress was soiled and inhabited. Still, it was very +diverting, after an itching night, to watch the cockroaches, which were +almost as large as mice, hurrying about their duties on the floor and +ceiling. Huddled under the forward awnings were two-score deck +passengers--Greeks, Turks, Armenians and Roumanians. Sprawled on their +straw-filled mattresses, they loafed the hot and lazy days away in +playing cards, eating the black bread, olives and garlic which they had +brought with them, smoking a peculiarly strong and villainous tobacco, +and torturing native musical instruments of various kinds. At night a +young Turk sang plaintive, quavering laments to the accompaniment of a +sort of guitar, some of the others occasionally joining in the mournful +chorus. I found my chief recreation, when it grew too dark to read, in +watching an Orthodox priest, who was one of the deck-passengers, prepare +for the night by combing and putting up his long and greasy hair. +Another of the deck-passengers was a rather prosperous-looking, +middle-aged Levantine who had been in America making his fortune, he +told me, and was now returning to his wife, who lived in a little +village on the Dardanelles, after an absence of sixteen years. She had +no idea that he was coming, he said, as he had planned to surprise her. +Perhaps he was the one to be surprised. Sixteen years is a long time for +a woman to wait for a man, even in a country as conservative as Turkey. + +The officers of the _Padova_ talked a good deal about the mine-fields +that still guarded the approaches to the Dardanelles and the possibility +that some of the deadly contrivances might have broken loose and drifted +across our course. In order to cheer us up the captain showed us the +charts, on which the mined areas were indicated by diagonal shadings, +little red arrows pointing the way between them along channels as +narrow and devious as a forest trail. To add to our sense of security he +told us that he had never been through the Dardanelles before, adding +that he did not intend to pick up a pilot, as he considered their +charges exorbitant. At the base of the great mine-field which lies +across the mouth of the Straits we were hailed by a British patrol boat, +whose choleric commander bellowed instructions at us, interlarded with +much profanity, through a megaphone. The captain of the _Padova_ could +understand a few simple English phrases, if slowly spoken, but the +broadside of Billingsgate only confused and puzzled him, so, despite the +fact that he had no pilot and that darkness was rapidly descending, he +kept serenely on his course. This seemed to enrage the British skipper, +who threw over his wheel and ran directly across our bows, very much as +one polo player tries to ride off another. + +"You ---- fool!" he bellowed, fairly dancing about his quarter-deck with +rage. "Why in hell don't you stop when I tell you to? Don't you know +that you're running straight into a mine-field? Drop anchor alongside me +and do it ---- quick or I'll take your ---- license away from you. And +I don't want any of your ---- excuses, either. I won't listen to 'em." + +"What he say?" the captain asked me. "I not onderstan' hees Engleesh +ver' good." + +"No, you wouldn't," I told him. "He's speaking a sort of patois, you +see. He wants to know if you will have the great kindness to drop anchor +alongside him until morning, for it is forbidden to pass through the +mine-fields in the dark, and he hopes that you will have a very pleasant +night." + +Five minutes later our anchor had rumbled down off Sed-ul-Bahr, under +the shadow of Cape Helles, the tip of that rock, sun-scorched, +blood-soaked peninsula which was the scene of that most heroic of +military failures--the Gallipoli campaign. Above us, on the bare brown +hillside, was what looked, in the rapidly deepening twilight, like a +patch of driven snow, but upon examining it through my glasses I saw +that it was a field enclosed by a rude wall and planted thickly with +small white wooden crosses, standing row on row. Then I remembered. It +was at the foot of these steep and steel-swept bluffs that the Anzacs +made their immortal landing; it is here, in earth soaked with their own +blood, that they lie sleeping. The crowded dugouts in which they dwelt +have already fallen in; the trenches which they dug and which they held +to the death have crumbled into furrows; their bones lie among the rocks +and bushes at the foot of that dark and ominous hill on whose slopes +they made their supreme sacrifice. Leaning on the rail of the deserted +bridge in the darkness and the silence it seemed as though I could see +their ghosts standing amid the crosses on the hillside staring longingly +across the world toward that sun-baked Karroo of Australia and to the +blue New Zealand mountains which they called "Home." It was a night +never to be forgotten, for the glassy surface of the AEgean glowed with +phosphorescence, the sky was like a hanging of purple velvet, and the +peak of our foremast seemed almost to graze the stars. Across the +Hellespont, to the southward, the sky was illumined by a ruddy glow--a +village burning, so a sailor told me, on the site of ancient Troy. And +then there came back to me those lines from Agamemnon which I had +learned as a boy: + + _"Beside the ruins of Troy they lie buried, those men so beautiful; + there they have their burial-place, hidden in an enemy's land!"_ + +We got under way at daybreak and, picking our way as cautiously as a +small boy who is trying to get out of the house at night without +awakening his family, we crept warily through the vast mine-field which +was laid across the entrance to the Dardanelles, past Sed-ul-Bahr, whose +sandy beach is littered with the rusting skeletons of both Allied and +Turkish warships and transports; past Kalid Bahr, where the high bluffs +are dotted with the ruins of Turkish forts destroyed by the shell-fire +of the British dreadnaughts on the other side of the peninsula and with +the remains of other forts which were destroyed in the Crusaders' times; +past Chanak, where the steep hill-slopes behind the town were white with +British tents, and so into the safe waters of the Marmora Sea. Though I +was perfectly familiar with the topography of the Gallipoli Peninsula, +as well as with the possibilities of modern naval guns, I was astonished +at the evidences, which we saw along the shore for miles, of the +extraordinary accuracy of the fire of the British fleet. Virtually all +the forts defending the Dardanelles were bombarded by indirect fire, +remember, the whole width of the peninsula separating them from the +fleet. To get a mental picture of the situation you must imagine +warships lying in the East River firing over Manhattan Island in an +attempt to reduce fortifications on the Hudson. Men who were in the +Gallipoli forts during the bombardment told me that, though they were +prevented by the rocky ridge which forms the spine of the peninsula from +seeing the British warships, and though, for the same reason, the +gunners on the ships could not see the forts, the great steel +calling-cards of the British Empire came falling out of nowhere as +regularly and with as deadly precision as though they were being fired +at point-blank range. + +The successful defense of the Dardanelles, one of the most brilliantly +conducted defensive operations of the entire war, was primarily due to +the courage and stubborn endurance of Turkey's Anatolian soldiery, +ignorant, stolid, hardy, fearless peasants, who were taken straight from +their farms in Asia Minor, put into wretchedly made, ill-fitting +uniforms, hastily trained by German drillmasters, set down in the +trenches on the Gallipoli ridge and told to hold them. No one who is +familiar with the conditions under which these Turkish soldiers fought, +who knows how wretched were the conditions under which they lived, who +has seen those waterless, sun-seared ridges which they held against the +might of Britain's navy and the best troops which the Allies could bring +against them, can withhold from them his admiration. Their valor was +deserving of a better cause. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +WILL THE SICK MAN OF EUROPE RECOVER? + + +Each time that I have approached Constantinople from the Marmora Sea and +have watched that glorious and fascinating panorama--Seraglio Point, St. +Sophia, Stamboul, the Golden Horn, the Galata Bridge, the heights of +Pera, Dolmabagtche, Yildiz--slowly unfold, revealing new beauties, new +mysteries, with each revolution of the steamer's screw, I have declared +that in all the world there is no city so lovely as this capital of the +Caliphs. Yet, beautiful though Constantinople is, it combines the moral +squalor of Southern Europe with the physical squalor of the Orient to a +greater degree than any city in the Levant. Though it has assumed the +outward appearance of a well-organized and fairly well administered +municipality since its occupation by the Allies, one has but to scratch +this thin veneer to discover that the filth and vice and corruption and +misgovernment which characterized it under Ottoman rule still remain. +Barring a few municipal improvements which were made in the European +quarter of Pera and in the fashionable residential districts between +Dolmabagtche and Yildiz, the Turkish capital has scarcely a bowing +acquaintance with modern sanitation, the windows of some of the finest +residences in Stamboul looking out on open sewers down which refuse of +every description floats slowly to the sea or takes lodgment on the +banks, these masses of decaying matter attracting great swarms of +pestilence-breeding flies. The streets are thronged with women whose +virtue is as easy as an old shoe, attracted by the presence of the +armies as vultures are attracted by the smell of carrion. Saloons, +brothels, dives and gambling hells run wide open and virtually +unrestricted, and as a consequence venereal diseases abound, though the +British military authorities, in order to protect their own men, have +put the more notorious resorts "out of bounds" and, in order to provide +more wholesome recreations for the troops, have opened amusement parks +called "military gardens." In spite of the British, French, Italian and +Turkish military police who are on duty in the streets, stabbing +affrays, shootings and robberies are so common that they provoke but +little comment. Petty thievery is universal. Hats, coats, canes, +umbrellas disappear from beside one's chair in hotels and restaurants. +The Pera Palace Hotel has notices posted in its corridors warning the +guests that it is no longer safe to place their shoes outside their +doors to be polished. The streets, always wretchedly paved, have been +ground to pieces by the unending procession of motor-lorries, and, as +they are never by any chance repaired, the first rain transforms them +into a series of hog-wallows. The most populous districts of Pera, of +Galata, and of Stamboul are now disfigured by great areas of +fire-blackened ruins--reminders of the several terrible conflagrations +from which the Turkish capital has suffered in recent years. "Should the +United States decide to accept the mandate for Constantinople," a +resident remarked to me, "these burned districts would give her an +opportunity to start rebuilding the city on modern sanitary lines" and, +he might have added, at American expense. + +The prices of necessities are fantastic and of luxuries fabulous. The +cost of everything has advanced from 200 to 1,200 per cent. The price of +a meal is no longer reckoned in piastres but in Turkish pounds, though +this is not as startling as it sounds, for the Turkish _lira_ has +dropped to about a quarter of its normal value. Quite a modest dinner +for two at such places as Tokatlian's, the Pera Palace Hotel, or the +Pera Gardens, costs the equivalent of from fifteen to twenty dollars. +Everything else is in proportion. From the "Little Club" in Pera to the +Galata Bridge is about a seven minutes' drive by carriage. In the old +days the standard tariff for the trip was twenty-five cents. Now the +cabmen refuse to turn a wheel for less than two dollars. + +Speaking of money, the chief occupation of the traveler in the Balkans +is exchanging the currency of one country for that of another: lira into +dinars, dinars into drachmae, drachmae into piastres, piastres into leva, +leva into lei, lei into roubles (though no one ever exchanges his money +for roubles if he can possibly help it), roubles into kronen, and kronen +into lire again. The idea is to leave each country with as little as +possible of that country's currency in your possession. It is like +playing that card game in which you are penalized for every heart you +have left in your hand. + +"But how is the Sick Man?" I hear you ask. + +He is doing very nicely, thank you. In fact, he appears to be steadily +improving. There was a time, shortly after the Armistice, when it seemed +certain that he would have to submit to an operation, which he probably +would not have survived, but the surgeons disagreed as to the method of +operating and now it looks as though he would get well in spite of them. +He has a chill every time they hold a consultation, of course, but he +will probably escape the operation altogether, though he may have to +take some extremely unpleasant medicine and be kept on a diet for +several years to come. He has remarkable recuperative powers, you know, +and his friends expect to see him up and about before long. + +That may sound flippant, as it is, but it sums up in a single paragraph +the extraordinary political situation which exists in Turkey to-day. +Little more than a year ago Turkey surrendered in defeat, her resources +exhausted, her armies destroyed or scattered. If anything in the world +seemed certain at that time it was that the redhanded nation, whose very +name has for centuries been a synonym for cruelty and oppression, would +disappear from the map of Europe, if not from the map of the world, at +the behest of an outraged civilization. The Turkish Government committed +the most outrageous crime of the entire war when it organized the +systematic extermination of the Armenians. Its former Minister of War, +Enver Pasha, has been quoted as cynically remarking, "If there are no +more Armenians there can be no Armenian question." A people capable of +such barbarity ought no longer be permitted to sully Europe with their +presence: they ought to be driven back into those savage Anatolian +regions whence they came and kept there, just as those suffering from a +less objectionable form of leprosy are confined on Molokai. But the +fervor of a year ago for expelling the Turks from Europe is rapidly +dying down. In the spring of 1919 Turkey could have been partitioned by +the Allies with comparatively little friction. No one expected it more +than Turkey herself. Whenever she heard a step on the floor, a knock at +the door, she keyed herself for the ordeal of the anesthetic and the +operating table. But the ancient jealousies and rivalries of the Entente +nations, which had been forgotten during the war, returned with peace +and now it looks as though, as a result of these nations' distrust and +suspicion of each other, the Turks would win back by diplomacy what they +lost in battle. How History repeats itself! The Turks have often been +unlucky in war and then had a return of luck at the peace table. It was +so after the Russo-Turkish War, when the Congress of Berlin tore up the +Treaty of San Stefano. It was so to a lesser extent after the Balkan +wars, when the interference of the European Concert enabled Turkey to +recover Adrianople and a portion of the Thracian territory which she had +lost to Bulgaria. And now it looks as though she were once again to +escape the punishment she so richly merits. If she does, then History +will chronicle few more shameful miscarriages of justice. + +If the people of the United States could know for a surety of the +avarice, the selfishness, the cynicism which have marked every step of +the negotiations relative to the settlement of the Near Eastern +Question, if they were aware of the chicanery and the deceit and the low +cunning practised by the European diplomatists, I am convinced that +there would be an irresistible demand that we withdraw instantly from +participation in the affairs of Southeastern Europe and of Western Asia. +Why not look the facts in the face? Why not admit that these affairs +are, after all, none of our concern, and that, by every one save the +Turks and the Armenians, our attempted dictation is resented. In the +language of the frontier, we have butted into a game in which we are not +wanted. It is no game for up-lifters or amateurs. England, France, Italy +and Greece are not in this game to bring order out of chaos but to +establish "spheres of influence." They are not thinking about +self-determination and the rights of little peoples and making the world +safe for Democracy; they are thinking in terms of future commercial and +territorial advantage. They are playing for the richest stakes in the +history of the world: for the control of the Bosphorus and the Bagdad +Railway--for whoever controls them controls the trade routes to India, +Persia, and the vast, untouched regions of Transcaspia; the commercial +domination of Western Asia, and the overlordship of that city which +stands at the crossroads of the Eastern World and its political capital +of Islam. + +In order better to appreciate the subtleties of the game which they are +playing, let us glance over the shoulders of the players, and get a +glimpse of their hands. Take England to begin with. Unless I am greatly +mistaken, England is not in favor of a complete dismemberment of Turkey +or the expulsion of the Sultan from Constantinople. This is a complete +_volte face_ from the sentiment in England immediately after the war, +but during the interim she has heard in no uncertain terms from her +100,000,000 Mohammedan subjects in India, who look on the Turkish Sultan +as the head of their religion and who would resent his humiliation as +deeply, and probably much more violently, than the Roman Catholics would +resent the humiliation of the Pope. British rule in India, as those who +are in touch with Oriental affairs know, is none too stable, and the +last thing in the world England wants to do is to arouse the hostility +of her Moslem subjects by affronting the head of their faith. England +will unquestionably retain control of Mesopotamia for the sake of the +oil wells at the head of the Persian Gulf, the control which it gives +her of the eastern section of the Bagdad Railway, and because of her +belief that scientific irrigation will once more transform the plains of +Babylonia into one of the greatest wheat-producing regions in the world. +She may, and probably will, keep her oft-repeated promises to the Jews +by erecting Palestine into a Hebrew kingdom under British protection, if +for no other reason than its value as a buffer state to protect Egypt. +She will also, I assume, continue to foster and support the policy of +Pan-Arabism, as expressed In the new Kingdom of the Hedjaz, not alone +for the reason that control of the Arabian peninsula gives her complete +command of the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf as well as a highroad from +Egypt to her new protectorate of Persia, but because she hopes, I +imagine, that her protege, the King of Hedjaz, as Sheriff of Mecca, will +eventually supplant the Sultan as the religious head of Islam. (It is +interesting to note, in passing, that, as a result of the protectorates +which she has proclaimed over Mesopotamia, Palestine, Arabia and Persia, +England has, as a direct result of the war, obtained control of new +territories in Asia alone having an area greater than that of all the +states east of the Mississippi put together, with a population of some +20,000,000.) Though England would unquestionably welcome the United +States accepting a mandate for Constantinople, which would ensure the +neutrality of the Bosphorus, and for Armenia, which, under American +protection, would form a stabilized buffer state on Mesopotamia's +northern border, I am convinced that, even if the United States refuses +such mandates, the British Government will oppose the serious +humiliation of the Sultan-Khalif, or the complete dismemberment of his +dominions. + +The latest French plan is to establish an independent Turkey from +Adrianople to the Taurus Mountains, lopping off Syria, which will become +a French protectorate, and Mesopotamia and Palestine, which will remain +under British control. + +Constantinople, according to the French view, must remain independent, +though doubtless the freedom of the Straits would be assured by some +form of international control. France is not particularly enthusiastic +about the establishment of an independent Armenia, for many French +politicians believe that the interests of the Armenians can be +safeguarded while permitting them to remain under the nominal suzerainty +of Turkey, but she will oppose no active objections to Armenian +independence. But there must be no crusade against the Turkish +Nationalists who are operating in Asia Minor and no pretext given for +Nationalist massacres of Greeks and Armenians. And the Sultan must +retain the Khalifate and his capital in Constantinople, for, according +to the French view, it is far better for the interests of France, who +has nearly 30,000,000 Moslem subjects of her own, to have an independent +head of Islam at Constantinople, where he would be to a certain extent +under French influence, than to have a British-controlled one at Mecca. +The truth of the matter is that France is desperately anxious to protect +her financial interests in Turkey, which are already enormous, and she +knows perfectly well that her commercial and financial ascendency on +the Bosphorus will suddenly wane if the Empire should be dismembered. +That is the real reason why she is cuddling up to the Sick Man. Being +perfectly aware that neither England nor Italy would consent to her +becoming the mandatary for Constantinople, she proposes to do the next +best thing and rule Turkey in the future, as in the past, through the +medium of her financial interests. Sophisticated men who have read the +remarkable tributes to Turkey which have been appearing in the French +press, and its palliation of her long list of crimes, have been aware +that something was afoot, but only those who have been on the inside of +recent events realize how enormous are the stakes, and how shrewd and +subtle a game France is playing. + +Strictly speaking, Italy is not one of the claimants to Constantinople. +Not that she does not want it, mind you, but because she knows that +there is about as much chance of her being awarded such a mandate as +there is of her obtaining French Savoy, which she likewise covets. Under +no conceivable conditions would France consent to the Bosphorus passing +under Italian control; according to French views, indeed, Italy is +already far too powerful in the Balkans. Recognizing the hopelessness of +attempting to overcome French opposition, Italy has confined her claims +to the great rich region of Cilicia, which roughly corresponds to the +Turkish vilayet of Adana, a rich and fertile region in southern Asia +Minor, with a coast line stretching from Adana to Alexandretta. Cilicia, +I might mention parenthetically, is usually included in the proposed +Armenian state, and Armenians have anticipated that Alexandretta would +be their port on the Mediterranean, but, while the peacemakers at Paris +have been discussing the question, Italy has been pouring her troops +into this region, having already occupied the hinterland as far back as +Konia. Italy's sole claim to this region is that she wants it and that +she is going to take it while the taking is good. There are, it is true, +a few Italians along the coast, there are some Italian banks, and +considerable Italian money has been invested in various local projects, +but the population is overwhelmingly Turkish. But, as the Italians point +out in defending this piece of land-grabbing, Article 22 of the Covenant +of the League of Nations expressly states that the wishes of people not +yet civilized need not be considered. + +Let us now consider the claims of Greece as a reversionary of the Sick +Man's estate. Considering their attitude during the early part of the +war (for it is no secret that General Sarrail's operations in Macedonia +were seriously hampered by his fear that Greece might attack him in the +rear) and the paucity of their losses in battle, the Greeks have done +reasonably well in the game of territory grabbing. Do you realize, I +wonder, the full extent of the Hellenic claims? Greece asks for (1) the +southern portion of Albania, known as North Epirus; (2) for the whole of +Bulgarian Thrace, thus completely barring Bulgaria from the AEgean; (3) +for the whole of European Turkey, including the Dardanelles and +Constantinople; (4) for the province of Trebizond, on the southern shore +of the Black Sea, the Greek inhabitants of which attempted to establish +the so-called Pontus Republic; (5) the great seaport of Smyrna, with its +400,000 inhabitants, and a considerable portion of the hinterland, which +she has already occupied; (6) the Dodecannessus Islands, of which the +largest is Rhodes, off the western coast of Asia Minor, which the +Italians occupied during the Turco-Italian War and which they have not +evacuated; (7) the cession of Cyprus by England, which has administered +it since 1878. Greece's modest demands might be summed up in the words +of a song which was popular in the United States a dozen years ago and +which might appropriately be adopted by the Greeks as their national +anthem: + + "All I want is fifty million dollars, + A champagne fountain flowing at my feet; + J. Pierpont Morgan waiting at the table, + And Sousa's band a-playing while I eat." + +I will be quite candid in saying that I have small sympathy for Greece's +claims to these territories, not because she is not entitled to them on +the ground of nationality--for there is no denying that, in all of the +regions in question, save only Albania and Thrace, Greeks form a +majority of the Christian inhabitants--but because she is not herself +sufficiently advanced to be entrusted with authority over other races, +particularly over Mohammedans. The atrocities committed by Greek troops +on the Moslems of Albania and of Smyrna, to say nothing of the behavior +of the Greek bands in Macedonia during the Balkan wars, should be +sufficient proof of her unfitness to govern an alien race. I have +already spoken in some detail of the reported Greek outrages in Albania. +But this was not an isolated instance of the methods employed in +"Hellenizing" Moslem populations. In the spring of 1919 the Peace +Conference, hypnotized, apparently, by M. Venizelos, who is one of the +ablest diplomats of the day, made the mistake of permitting Greek +forces, unaccompanied by other troops, to land at Smyrna. Almost +immediately there began an indiscriminate slaughter of Turkish officials +and civilians, in retaliation, so the Greeks assert, for the massacre of +Greeks by Turks in the outlying districts. The obvious answer to this is +that, while the Greeks claim that they are a civilized race, they assert +that the Turks are not. The outcry against the Greeks on this occasion +was so great that an inter-allied commission, including American +representatives, was appointed to make a thorough investigation. This +commission unanimously found the Greeks guilty of the unprovoked +massacre of 800 Turkish men, women and children, who were shot down in +cold blood while being marched along the Smyrna waterfront, those who +were not killed instantly being thrown by Greek soldiers into the sea. +High handed and outrageous conduct by Greek troops in the towns and +villages back of Smyrna was also proved. I do not require any further +testimony as to the unwisdom of placing Mohammedans under Greek control, +but, if I did, I have the evidence of Mr. Hamlin, the son of the founder +of Roberts College, who was born in the Levant, who speaks both Turkish +and Greek, and who was sent to Smyrna by the Greek government as an +investigator and adviser. He told me that the Greek attitude toward the +Moslems was highly provocative and overbearing and that the Allies were +guilty of criminal negligence when they permitted the Greeks to land at +Smyrna alone. + +Though they know that their dream of restoring Hellenic rule over +Byzantium cannot be realized, the Greeks are bitterly opposed to the +United States receiving a mandate for Constantinople. The extent of +Greek hostility toward the United States is not appreciated in America, +yet I found traces of it everywhere in the Levant. A widespread Greek +propaganda has laid the responsibility for Greece's failure to get the +whole of Thrace at the door of the United States. To this accusation has +been added the charge that Americans were foremost in creating sentiment +against the Greek massacres in Smyrna, which, the Greeks contend, was +merely an unfortunate incident and should be overlooked. All sorts of +extraordinary reasons are advanced for America's alleged hostility to +Greek claims, ranging from the charge that our attitude is inspired by +the missionaries (for the Orthodox Church has always opposed the +presence of American missionaries in Greek lands) to commercial +ambition. As one leading Greek paper put it, "Alongside of America's +greed and schemes for commercial expansion since the war, Germany's +imperialism was pure idealism." + +[Illustration: YILDIZ KIOSK, THE FAVORITE PALACE OF ABDUL-HAMID AND HIS +SUCCESSORS ON THE THRONE OF OSMAN + +The building in the foreground, known as the Ambassador's Pavilion, is +only a small portion of the great Palace which in Abdul-Hamid's time +housed upward of 10,000 persons] + +And now a few words as to the attitude of Turkey herself, for she has, +after all, a certain interest in the matter. The Turks are perfectly +resigned to accepting either America, England or France as mandatary, +though they would much prefer America, provided that European Turkey, +Anatolia and Armenia are kept together, for they realize that Syria, +Mesopotamia and Arabia, whose populations are overwhelmingly Arab, are +lost to them forever. What they would most eagerly welcome would be an +American mandate for European Turkey and the whole of Asia Minor, +including Armenia. This would keep out the Greeks, whom they hate, and +the Italians, whom they distrust, and it would keep intact the most +valuable portion of the Empire and the part for which they have the +deepest sentimental attachment. Most Turks believe that, with America as +the mandatary power, the country would not only benefit enormously +through the railways, roads, harbor works, agricultural projects, +sanitary improvements and financial reforms which would be carried out +at American expense, as in the Philippines, but that, should the Turks +behave themselves and demonstrate an ability for self-government, +America would eventually restore their complete independence, as she has +promised to restore that of the Filipinos. But if they find that +Constantinople and Armenia are to be taken away from them, then I +imagine that they would vigorously oppose any mandatary whatsoever. And +they could make a far more effective opposition than is generally +believed, for, though Constantinople is admittedly at the mercy of the +Allied fleet in the Bosphorus, the Nationalist are said to have +recruited a force numbering nearly 300,000 men, composed of well-trained +and moderately well equipped veterans of the Gallipoli campaign, which +is concentrated in the almost inaccessible regions of Central Anatolia. +Moreover, Enver Pasha, the former Minister of War and leader of the +Young Turk party, who, it is reported, has made himself King of +Kurdistan, is said to be in command of a considerable force of Turks, +Kurds and Georgians which he has raised for the avowed purpose of ending +the troublesome Armenian question by exterminating what is left of the +Armenians, and by effecting a union of the Turks, the Kurds, the +Mohammedans of the Caucasus, the Persians, the Tartars and the Turkomans +into a vast Turanian Empire, which would stretch from the shores of the +Mediterranean to the borders of China. Though the realization of such a +scheme is exceedingly improbable, it is by no means as far-fetched or +chimerical as it sounds, for Enver is bold, shrewd, highly intelligent +and utterly unscrupulous and to weld the various races of his proposed +empire he is utilizing an enormously effective agency--the fanatical +faith of all Moslems in the future of Islam. Neither England nor France +have any desire to stir up this hornet's nest, which would probably +result in grave disorders among their own Moslem subjects and which +would almost certainly precipitate widespread massacres of the +Christians in Asia Minor, for the sake of dismembering Turkey and +ousting the Sultan. + +I have tried to make it clear that there is nothing which the Turks so +urgently desire as for the United States to take a mandate for the whole +of Turkey. Those who are in touch with public opinion in this country +realize, of course, that the people of the United States would never +approve of, and that Congress would never give its assent to such an +adventure, yet there are a considerable number of well-informed, able +and conscientious men--former Ambassador Henry Morgenthau and President +Henry King of Oberlin, for example--who give it their enthusiastic +support. And they are backed up by a host of missionaries, commercial +representatives, concessionaires and special commissioners of one sort +and another. When I was in Constantinople the European colony in that +city was watching with interest and amusement the maneuvers of the Turks +to bring the American officials around to accepting this view of the +matter. They "rushed" the rear admiral who was acting as American High +Commissioner and his wife as the members of a college fraternity "rush" +a desirable freshman. And, come to think of it, most of the American +officials who were sent out to investigate and report on conditions in +Turkey are freshmen when it comes to the complexities of Near Eastern +affairs. This does not apply, of course, to such men as Consul-General +Ravndal at Constantinople, Consul-General Horton at Smyrna, Dr. Howard +Bliss, President of the Syrian Protestant College at Beirut, and certain +others, who have lived in the Levant for many years and are intimately +familiar with the intricacies of its politics and the characters of its +peoples. But it does apply to those officials who, after hasty and +personally conducted tours through Asiatic Turkey, or a few months' +residence in the Turkish capital, are accepted as "experts" by the Peace +Conference and by the Government at Washington. When I listen to their +dogmatic opinions on subjects of which most of them were in abysmal +ignorance prior to the Armistice, I am always reminded of a remark once +made to me by Sir Edwin Pears, the celebrated historian and authority on +Turkish affairs. "I don't pretend to understand the Turkish character," +Sir Edwin remarked dryly, "but, you see, I have lived here only forty +years." + +It is an interesting and altruistic scheme, this proposed regeneration +at American expense of a corrupt and decadent empire, but in their +enthusiasm its supporters seem to have overlooked several obvious +objections. In the first place, though both England and France are +perfectly willing to have the United States accept a mandate for +European Turkey, Armenia and even Anatolia, I doubt if England would +welcome with enthusiasm a proposal that she should evacuate Palestine +and Mesopotamia, the conquest of which has cost her so much in blood and +gold, or whether France would consent to renounce her claims to Syria, +of which she has always considered herself the legatee. As for Italy and +Greece, I imagine that it would prove as difficult to oust the one from +Adalia and the other from Smyrna as it has been to oust the Poet from +Fiume. Secondly, such a mandate would mean the end of Armenia's dream of +independence, for, though she might be given a certain measure of +autonomy, and though she would, of course, no longer be exposed to +Turkish massacres, she would enjoy about as much real independence under +such an arrangement as the native states of India enjoy under the +British Raj. Lastly, nothing is further from our intention, if I know +the temper of my countrymen, than to assume any responsibility in order +to resurrect the Turk, nor are we interested in preserving the integrity +of Turkey in any guise, shape or form. Instead of perpetuating the +unspeakable rule of the Osmanli, we should assist in ending it forever. + +And now we come to the question of accepting a mandate for Armenia. In +order to get a mental picture of this foundling which we are asked to +rear you must imagine a country about the size of North Dakota, with +Dakota's cold winters and scorching summers, consisting of a dreary, +monotonous, mile-high plateau with grass-covered, treeless mountains +and watered by many rivers, whose valleys form wide strips of arable +land. Rising above the general level of this Armenian tableland are +barren and forbidding ranges, broken by many gloomy gorges, which +culminate, on the extreme northeast, in the mighty peak of Ararat, the +traditional resting-place of the Ark. Armenia is completely hemmed in by +alien and potentially hostile races. On the northeast are the wild +tribes of the Caucasus; on the east are the Persians, who, though not +hostile to Armenian aspirations, are of the faith of Islam; along +Armenia's southern border are the Kurds, a race as savage, as cruel and +as relentless as were the Apaches of our own West; on the east is +Anatolia, with its overwhelmingly Ottoman population. Before the war the +Armenians in the six Turkish vilayets--Trebizond, Erzeroum, Van, Bitlis, +Mamuret-el-Aziz and Diarbekir--numbered perhaps 2,000,000, as compared +with about 700,000 Turks. But there is no saying how many Armenians +remain, for during the past five years the Turks have perpetrated a +series of wholesale massacres in order to be able to tell the Christian +Powers, as a Turkish official cynically remarked, that "one cannot make +a state without inhabitants." + +As just and accurate an estimate of the Armenian character as any I have +read is that written by Sir Charles William Wilson, perhaps the foremost +authority on the subject, for the Encyclopaedia Britannica: "The +Armenians are essentially an Oriental people, possessing, like the Jews, +whom they resemble in their exclusiveness and widespread dispersion, a +remarkable tenacity of race and faculty of adaptation to circumstances. +They are frugal, sober, industrious and intelligent and their sturdiness +of character has enabled them to preserve their nationality and religion +under the sorest trials. They are strongly attached to old manners and +customs but have also a real desire for progress which is full of +promise. On the other hand they are greedy of gain, quarrelsome in small +matters, self-seeking and wanting in stability; and they are gifted with +a tendency to exaggeration and a love of intrigue which has had an +unfortunate effect on their history. They are deeply separated by +religious differences and their mutual jealousies, their inordinate +vanity, their versatility and their cosmopolitan character must always +be an obstacle to a realization of the dreams of the nationalists. The +want of courage and selfreliance, the deficiency in truth and honesty +sometimes noticed in connection with them, are doubtless due to long +servitude under an unsympathetic government." + +It seems to me that it is time to subordinate sentiment to common sense +in discussing the question of Armenia. I have known many Armenians and I +have the deepest sympathy for the woes of that tragic race, but if the +Armenians are in danger of extermination their fate is a matter for the +Allies as a whole, or for the League of Nations, if there ever is one, +but not for the United States alone. To administer and police Armenia +would probably require an army corps, or upwards of 50,000 men, and I +doubt if a force of such size could be raised for service in so remote +and inhospitable a region without great difficulty. My personal opinion +is that the Armenians, if given the necessary encouragement and +assistance, are capable of governing themselves. Certainly they could +not govern themselves more wretchedly than the Mexicans, yet there has +been no serious proposal that the United States should take a mandate +for Mexico. Everything considered, I am convinced that the highest +interests of Armenia, of America, and of civilization would be best +served by making Armenia an independent state, having much the same +relation to the United States as Cuba. Let us finance the Armenian +Republic by all means, let us lend it officers to organize its +gendarmerie and teachers for its schools, let us send it agricultural +and sanitary and building and financial experts, and let us give the +rest of the world, particularly the Turks, to understand that we will +tolerate no infringement of its sovereignly. Do that, set the Armenians +on their feet, safeguard them politically and financially, and then +leave them to work out their own salvation. + +Though prophesying is a dangerous business, and likely to lead to +embarrassment and chagrin for the prophet, I am willing to hazard a +guess that the future maps of what was once the Ottoman Dominions will +be laid out something after this fashion: Mesopotamia will be tinted +red, because it will be British. Palestine will also be under Britain's +aegis--a little independent Hebrew state, not much larger than Panama. +Under the word "Syria" will appear the inscription "French +Protectorate." The Adalia region will be designated "Italian Sphere of +Influence," while Smyrna and its immediate hinterland will probably be +labeled "Greek Sphere." Across the northeastern corner of Asia Minor +will be spread the words "Republic of Armenia" and beneath, in +parentheses, "Independence guaranteed by the United States." The whole +of Anatolia, save the Greek and Italian fringes just mentioned, will be +occupied and ruled by the Turks, for it is their ancestral home. The +fortifications along the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus will be leveled +and they, with Constantinople, will be under some form of international +control, with equal rights for all nations. But, unless I am very much +mistaken, the Turks will _not_ be driven out of Europe, as has so long +been predicted; the Ottoman Government will not retire to Brusa, in Asia +Minor, but will continue to function in Stamboul, and the Sultan, as the +religious head of Islam, will still dwell in the great white palace atop +of Yildiz hill. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +WHAT THE PEACE-MAKERS HAVE DONE ON THE DANUBE + + +When I called upon M. Bratianu, the Prime Minister of Rumania, who was +in Paris as a delegate to the Peace Conference, I opened the +conversation by innocently remarking that I proposed to spend some weeks +in his country during my travels in the Balkans. But I got no further, +for M. Bratianu, whose tremendous shoulders and bristling black beard +make him appear even larger than he is, sprang to his feet and brought +his fist crashing down upon the table. + +"You ought to know better than that, Major Powell," he angrily +exclaimed. "Rumania is not in the Balkans and never has been. We object +to being called a Balkan people." + +I apologized for my slip, of course, and amicable relations were +resumed, but I mention the incident as an illustration of how deeply +the Rumanians resent the inclusion of their country in that group of +turbulent kingdoms which compose what some one has aptly called the +Cockpit of Europe. The Rumanians are as sensitive in this respect as are +the haughty and aristocratic Creoles, inordinately proud of their French +or Spanish ancestry, when some ignorant Northerner remarks that he had +always supposed that Creoles were part negro. Not only is Rumania not +one of the Balkan states, geographically speaking, but the Rumanians' +idea of their country's importance has been enormously increased as a +result of its recent territorial acquisitions, which have made it the +sixth largest country in Europe, with an area very nearly equal to that +of Italy and with a population three-fourths that of Spain. You were not +aware, perhaps, that the width of Greater Rumania, from east to west, is +as great as the width of France from the English Channel to the +Mediterranean. One has to break into a run to keep pace with the march +of geography these days. + +Owing to the demoralization prevailing in Thrace and Bulgaria, railway +communications between Constantinople and the Rumanian frontier were so +disorganized that we decided to travel by steamer to Constantza, taking +the railway thence to Bucharest. Before the war the Royal Rumanian mail +steamer _Carol I_ was as trim and luxuriously fitted a vessel as one +could have found in Levantine waters. For more than a year, however, she +was in the hands of the Bolsheviks, so that when we boarded her her +sides were red with rust, her cabins had been stripped of everything +which could be carried away, and the straw-filled mattresses, each +covered with a dubious-looking blanket, were as full of unwelcome +occupants as the Black Sea was of floating mines. + +[Illustration: THE RED BADGE OF MERCY IN THE BALKANS + +American Red Cross women supplying food to a ship-load of starving +Russian refugees at Constantza, Rumania] + +Constantza, the chief port of Rumania, is superbly situated on a +headland overlooking the Black Sea. It has an excellent harbor, bordered +on one side by a number of large grain elevators and on the other by a +row of enormous petroleum tanks--the latter the property of an American +corporation; a mile or so of asphalted streets, several surprisingly +fine public buildings, and, on the beautifully terraced and landscaped +waterfront, an imposing but rather ornate casino and many luxurious +summer villas, most of which were badly damaged when the city was +bombarded by the Bulgars. Constantza is a favorite seaside resort for +Bucharest society and during the season its _plage_ is thronged with +summer visitors dressed in the height of the Paris fashion. From atop +his marble pedestal in the city's principal square a statue of the Roman +poet Ovid, who lived here in exile for many years, looks quizzically +down upon the light-hearted throng. + +It is in the neighborhood of 150 miles by railway from Constantza to +Bucharest and before the war the Orient Express used to make the journey +in less than four hours. Now it takes between twenty and thirty. We made +a record trip, for our train left Constantza at four o'clock in the +morning and pulled into Bucharest shortly before midnight. It is only +fair to explain, however, that the length of time consumed in the +journey was due to the fact that the bridge across the Danube near +Tchernavoda, which was blown up by the Bulgars, had not been repaired, +thus necessitating the transfer of the passengers and their luggage +across the river on flat-boats, a proceeding which required several +hours and was marked by the wildest confusion. So few trains are +running in the Balkans that there are never enough, or nearly enough, +seats to accommodate all the passengers, so that fully as many ride on +the roofs of the coaches as inside. This has the advantage, in the eyes +of the passengers, of making it impracticable for the conductor to +collect the fares, but it also has certain disadvantages. During our +trip from Constantza to Bucharest three roof passengers rolled off and +were killed. + +As a result of the lengthy occupation of the city by the Austro-Germans, +and their systematic removal of machinery and industrial material of +every description, everything is out of order in Bucharest. Water, +electric lights, gas, telephones, elevators, street-cars "_ne marche +pas_." Though we had a large and beautifully furnished room in the +Palace Hotel we had to climb three flights of stairs to reach it, the +light was furnished by candles, the water for the bathroom was brought +in buckets, and, as the Germans had removed the wires of the +house-telephones, we had to go into the hall and shout when we required +a servant. Yet the almost total lack of conveniences does not deter the +hotels from making the most exorbitant charges. Bucharest has always +been an expensive city but to-day the prices are fantastic. At Capsa's, +which is the most fashionable restaurant, it is difficult to get even a +modest lunch for two for less than twelve dollars. But, notwithstanding +the destruction of the nation's chief source of wealth, its oil wells, +by the Rumanians themselves, in order to prevent their use by the enemy, +and the systematic looting of the country by the invaders, there seems +to be no lack of money in Bucharest, for the restaurants are filled to +the doors nightly, there is a constant fusillade of champagne corks, and +in the various gardens, all of which have cabaret performances, the +popular dancers are showered with silver and notes. In fact, a customary +evening in Bucharest is not very far removed, in its gaiety and abandon, +from a New Year's Eve celebration in New York. Not even Paris can offer +a gayer night life than the Rumanian capital, for at the Jockey Club it +is no uncommon thing for 10,000 francs to change hands on the turn of a +card or a whirl of the roulette wheel; out the Chaussee Kisselew, at the +White City, the dance floor is crowded until daybreak with slender, +rather effeminate-looking officers in beautiful uniforms of green or +pale blue and superbly gowned and bejewelled women. Indeed, I doubt if +there is any city of its size in the world on whose streets one sees so +many _chic_ and beautiful women, though I might add that their jewels +are generally of a higher quality than their morals. As long as these +bewitching beauties behave themselves they are not molested by the +police, who seem to have an arrangement with the hotel managements +looking toward their control. When Mrs. Powell and I arrived at our +hotel the proprietor asked us for our passports, which, he explained, +must be vised by the police. The following morning my passport was +returned alone. + +"But where is my wife's passport?" I demanded, for in Southern Europe in +these days it is impossible to travel even short distances without one's +papers. + +"But M'sieu must know that we always retain the lady's passport until he +leaves," said the proprietor, with a knowing smile. "Then, should she +disappear with M'sieu's watch, or his money, or his jewels, she will not +be able to leave the city and the police can quickly arrest her. Yes, +it is the custom here. A neat idea, _hein_?" + +Though I succeeded in obtaining the return of Mrs. Powell's passport I +am not at all certain that I succeeded in entirely convincing the +_hotelier_ that she really was my wife. + +Rumania is at present passing through a period of transition. Not only +have the area and population of the country been more than doubled, but +the war has changed all other conditions and the new forms of national +life are still unsettled. In the summer of 1918 even the most optimistic +Rumanians doubted if the nation would emerge from the war with more than +a fraction of its former territory, yet to-day, as a result of the +acquisition of Transylvania, Bessarabia and the eastern half of the +Banat, the country's population has risen from seven to fourteen +millions and its area from 50,000 to more than 100,000 square miles. The +new conditions have brought new laws. Of these the most revolutionary is +the law which forbids landowners to retain more than 1,000 acres of +their land, the government taking over and paying for the residue, which +is given to the peasants to cultivate. As a result of this policy, +there have been practically no strikes or labor troubles in Rumania, +for, now that most of their demands have been conceded, the Rumanian +peasants seem willing to seek their welfare in work instead of +Bolshevism. Heretofore the Jews, though liable to military service, have +not been permitted a voice in the government of their country, but, as a +result of recent legislation, they have now been granted full civil +rights, though whether they will be permitted to exercise them is +another question. The Jews, who number upwards of a quarter of a +million, have a strangle hold on the finances of the country and they +must not be permitted, the Rumanians insist, to get a similar grip on +the nation's politics. It is only very recently, indeed, that Rumanian +Jews have been granted passports, which meant that only those rich +enough to obtain papers by bribery could enter or leave the country. The +Rumanians with whom I discussed the question said quite frankly that the +legislation granting suffrage to the Jews would probably be observed +very much as the Constitutional Amendment granting suffrage to the +negroes is observed in our own South. + +The truth of the matter is that Rumania is in the hands of a clique of +selfish and utterly unscrupulous politicians who have grown rich from +their systematic exploitation of the national resources. Every bank and +nearly every commercial enterprise of importance is in their hands. One +of the present ministers entered the cabinet a poor man; to-day he is +reputed to be worth twenty millions. Anything can be purchased in +Rumania--passports, exemption from military service, cabinet portfolios, +commercial concessions--if you have the money to pay for it. The fingers +of Rumanian officials are as sticky as those of the Turks. An officer of +the American Relief Administration told me that barely sixty per cent, +of the supplies sent from the United States for the relief of the +Rumanian peasantry ever reached those for whom they were intended; the +other forty per cent, was kept by various officials. To find a parallel +for the political corruption which exists throughout Rumania it is +necessary to go back to New York under the Tweed administration or to +Mexico under the Diaz regime. + +From a wealthy Hungarian landowner, with whom I traveled from Bucharest +to the frontier of Jugoslavia, I obtained a graphic idea of what can be +accomplished by money in Rumania. This young Hungarian, who had been +educated in England and spoke with a Cambridge accent, possessed large +estates in northeastern Hungary. After four years' service as an officer +of cavalry he was demobilized upon the signing of the Armistice. When +the revolution led by Bela Kun broke out in Budapest he escaped from +that city on foot, only to be arrested by the Rumanians as he was +crossing the Rumanian frontier. Fortunately for him, he had ample funds +in his possession, obtained from the sale of the cattle on his estate, +so that he was able to purchase his freedom after spending only three +days in jail. But his release did not materially improve his situation, +for he had no passport and, as Hungary was then under Bolshevist rule, +he was unable to obtain one. And he realized that without a passport it +would be impossible for him to join his wife and children, who were +awaiting him in Switzerland. As luck would have it, however, he was +slightly acquainted with the prefect of a small town in +Transylvania--for obvious reasons I shall not mention its name--which he +finally reached after great difficulty, traveling by night and lying +hidden by day so as to avoid being halted and questioned by the Rumanian +patrols. By paying the prefect 1,000 francs and giving him and his +friends a dinner at the local hotel, he obtained a certificate stating +that he was a citizen of the town and in good standing with the local +authorities. Armed with this document, which was sufficient to convince +inquisitive border officials of his Rumanian nationality, he took train +for Bucharest, where he spent five weeks dickering for a Rumanian +passport which would enable him to leave the country. Including the +bribes and entertainments which he gave to officials, and gifts of one +sort and another to minor functionaries, it cost him something over +25,000 francs to obtain a passport duly vised for Switzerland. But my +friend's anxieties did not end there, for a Rumanian leaving the country +was not permitted to take more than 1,000 francs in currency with him, +those suspected of having in their possession funds in excess of this +amount being subjected to a careful search at the frontier. My friend +had with him, however, something over 500,000 francs, all that he had +been able to realize from his estates. How to get this sum out of the +country was a perplexing problem, but he finally solved it by concealing +the notes, which were of large denomination, in the bottom of a box of +expensive face powder, which, he explained to the officials at the +frontier, he was taking as a present to his wife. When the train drew +into the first Serbian station and he realized that he was beyond the +reach of pursuit, he capered up and down the platform like a small boy +when school closes for the long vacation. + +Considerable astonishment seems to have been manifested by the American +press and public at the disinclination of Rumania and Jugoslavia to sign +the treaty with Austria without reservations. Yet this should scarcely +occasion surprise, for the attitude of the great among the Allies toward +the smaller brethren who helped them along the road to victory has been +at times blameworthy, often inexplicable, and on frequent occasions +arrogant and tactless. At the outset of the Peace Conference some +endeavor was made to live up to the promises so loudly made that +henceforth the rights of the weak were to receive as much attention as +those of the strong. Commissions were formed to study various aspects of +the questions involved in the peace and upon these the representatives +of the smaller nations were given seats. But this did not last long. +Within a month Messrs. Wilson, Lloyd-George, Clemenceau and Orlando had +made themselves virtually the dictators of the Peace Conference, +deciding behind closed doors matters of vital moment to the national +welfare of the small states without so much as taking them into +consultation. Prime Minister Bratianu, who went to Paris as the head of +the Rumanian peace delegation, told me, his voice hoarse with +indignation, that the "Big Four," in settling Rumania's future +boundaries, had not only not consulted him but that he had not even been +informed of the terms decided upon. "They hand us a fountain pen and say +'Sign here,'" the Premier exclaimed, "and then they are surprised if we +refuse to affix our signatures to a document which vitally concerns our +national future but about which we have never been consulted." + +We Americans, of all peoples, should realize that a small nation is as +jealous of its independence as a large one. As a matter of fact, Rumania +and her sister-states of Southeastern Europe, who still bear the scars +of Turkish oppression, are super-sensitive in this respect, the fact +that they have so often been the victims of intriguing neighbors making +them more than ordinarily suspicious and resentful toward any action +which tends to limit their mastery of their own households. Hence they +regard that clause of the Treaty of St. Germain providing for the +protection of ethnical minorities with an indignation which cannot +easily be appreciated by the Western nations. The boundaries of the new +and aggrandized states of Southeastern Europe will necessarily include +alien minorities--this cannot be avoided--and the Peace Conference held +that the welfare of such minorities must be the special concern of the +League of Nations. Take the case of Rumania, for example. In order to +unite her people she must annex some compact masses of aliens which, in +certain cases at least, have been deliberately planted within +ethnological frontiers for a specific purpose. The settlements of +Magyars in Transylvania, who, under Hungarian rule, were permitted to +exploit their Rumanian neighbors without let or hindrance, will not +willingly surrender the privileges they have so long enjoyed and submit +to a regime of strict justice and equality. On the other hand, Rumania +can scarcely be expected to agree to an arrangement which would not only +impair her sovereignty but would almost certainly encourage intrigue and +unrest among these alien minorities. How would the United States regard +a proposal to submit its administration of the Philippines to +international control? How would England like the League of Nations to +take a hand in the government of Ireland? That, briefly stated, is the +reason why both Rumania and Jugoslavia objected so strongly to the +inclusion of the so-called racial minorities clause in the Treaty of St. +Germain. Looking at the other side of the question, it Is easy to +understand the solicitude which the treaty-makers at Paris displayed for +the thousands of Magyars, Serbs and Bulgars who, without so much as a +by-your-leave, they have placed under Rumanian rule. No less authority +than Viscount Bryce has made the assertion that in Transylvania alone +(which, by the way, has an area considerably greater than all our New +England states put together), which has been taken over by Rumania, +fully a third of the population has no affinity with the Rumanians. +Similarly, there are whole towns in the Dobrudja which are composed of +Bulgarians, there are large groups of Russian Slavs in Bessarabia, and +considerable colonies of Jugoslavs in the eastern half of the Banat +which, very much against their wishes, have been forced to submit to +Rumanian rule. Whether, now that the tables are turned, the Rumanians +will put aside their ancient animosities and prejudices and give these +new and unwilling citizens every privilege which they themselves enjoy, +is a question which only the future can solve. + +Another question, which has agitated Rumania even more violently than +that of the racial minorities clause, was the demand made by the Great +Powers that the Rumanian army be withdrawn from Hungary and that the +livestock and agricultural implements of which that unhappy country was +stripped by the Rumanian forces be immediately returned. Here is the +Rumanian version: Hungary went Bolshevist and assumed a hostile +attitude toward Rumania, Czechoslovakia and Jugoslavia, the three +countries which will benefit by her dismemberment according to the +principle of nationality. Hungary attacked these countries by arms and +by anarchistic propaganda. The Rumanians, the Czechoslovaks and the +Jugoslavs, wishing to defend themselves, asked permission of the Supreme +Council to deal drastically with the Hungarian menace. The reply, which +was late in coming, was couched in vague and unsatisfactory language. +Emboldened by the vacillatory attitude of the Powers, the Hungarians +began a military offensive, invading Czechoslovakia and crossing the +lines of the Armistice in Rumania and Jugoslavia. In order to prevent a +spread of this Bolshevist movement the three countries prepared to +occupy Hungary with troops, whereupon a command came from the Supreme +Council in Paris that such aggression would not be tolerated. This +encouraged Bela Kun, the Hungarian Trotzky, and made him so popular that +he succeeded in raising a Red army with which he crossed the River +Theiss and invaded Rumania. Whereupon the Rumanian army, being unable to +obtain support from the Supreme Council, pushed back the Hungarians, +occupied Budapest, overthrew Bela Kun's administration and restored +order in Hungary. But the Supreme Council, feeling that its authority +had been ignored by the little country, sent several messages to the +Rumanian Government peremptorily ordering it to withdraw its troops +immediately from Hungary. Here endeth the Rumanian version. + +Now the real reason which actuated the Supreme Council was not that it +felt that its authority had been slighted, but because it was informed +by its representatives in Hungary that the Rumanians had not stopped +with ousting Bela Kun and suppressing Bolshevism, but were engaged in +systematically looting the country, driving off thousands of head of +livestock, and carrying away all the machinery, rolling stock, telephone +and telegraph wires and instruments and metalwork they could lay their +hands on, thereby completely crippling the industries of Hungary and +depriving great numbers of people of employment. The Rumanians retorted +that the Austro-German armies had systematically looted Rumania during +their three years of occupation and that they were only taking back +what belonged to them. The Hungarians, while admitting that Rumania had +been pretty thoroughly stripped of animals and machinery by von +Mackensen's armies, asserted that this loot had not remained in Hungary +but had been taken to Germany, which was probably true. The Supreme +Council took the position that the animals and material which the +Rumanians were rushing out of Hungary in train-loads was not the sole +property of Rumania, but that it was the property of all the Allies, and +that the Supreme Council would apportion it among them in its own good +time. The Council pointed out, furthermore, that if the Rumanians +succeeded in wrecking Hungary industrially, as they were evidently +trying to do, it would be manifestly impossible for the Hungarians to +pay any war indemnity whatsoever. And finally, that a bankrupt and +starving Hungary meant a Bolshevist Hungary and that there was already +enough trouble of that sort in Eastern Europe without adding to it. The +Rumanians proving deaf to these arguments, the Supreme Council sent +three messages, one after the other, to the Bucharest government, +ordering the immediate withdrawal from Hungarian soil of the Rumanian +troops. Yet the Rumanian troops remained in Budapest and the looting of +Hungary continued, the Rumanian government declaring that the messages +had never been received. Meanwhile every one in the kingdom, from +Premier to peasant, was laughing in his sleeve at the helplessness of +the Supreme Council. But they laughed too soon. For the Supreme Council +wired to the Food Administrator, Herbert Hoover, who was in Vienna, +informing him of the facts of the situation, whereupon Mr. Hoover, who +has a blunt and uncomfortably direct way of achieving his ends, sent a +curt message to the Rumanian government informing it that, if the orders +of the Supreme Council were not immediately obeyed, he would shut off +its supplies of food. _That_ message produced action. The troops were +withdrawn. I can recall no more striking example of the amazing changes +brought about in Europe by the Great War than the picture of this +boyish-faced Californian mining engineer coolly giving orders to a +European government, and having those orders promptly obeyed, after the +commands of the Great Powers had been met with refusal and derision. To +take a slight liberty with the lines of Mr. Kipling-- + + _"The Kings must come down and the Emperors frown + When Herbert Hoover says 'Stop!'"_ + +Up to that time the United States had been immensely popular in Rumania. +But Mr. Hoover's action made us about as popular with the Rumanians as +the smallpox. He and we were charged with being actuated by the most +despicable and sordid motives. The King himself told me that he was +convinced that Mr. Hoover was in league with certain great commercial +interests which wished to take their revenge for their failure to obtain +commercial concessions of great value in Rumania. A cabinet minister, in +discussing the incident with me, became so inarticulate with rage that +he could scarcely talk at all. + +But the United States is not the only country which has lost the +confidence of the Rumanians. France is even more deeply distrusted and +disliked than we are. And this in spite of the fact that the upper +classes of Rumania have held up the French as their ideal for the past +fifty years. Indeed, wealthy Rumanians live in a fashion more French +than if they dwelt in Paris itself. This sudden unpopularity of the +French is due to several causes. After having expected much of them, the +people were amazed and bitterly disappointed at their apparent +indifference toward the future of Rumania. Then there were the +unfortunate incidents at Odessa, the withdrawal of the French forces +from that city before the advance of the Bolsheviks, and the regrettable +happening in the French Black Sea fleet These things, of course, +contributed to loss of French prestige. Another contributory factor has +been the lack of enterprise of French capitalists, causing those who +control the financial and economic development of Rumania to seek +encouragement and assistance elsewhere. But the underlying reason for +the deep-seated distrust of France is to be found, I think, in France's +attempt to maintain the balance of power in Southeastern Europe by +building up a strong Jugoslavia. Now the Rumanians, it must be +remembered, hate the Jugoslavs even more bitterly than they hate the +Hungarians--and they are far more afraid of them. This hatred is not +merely the result of the age-long antagonism between the Latin and the +Slav; it is also political. The Rumanians have watched with growing +jealousy and apprehension the expansion of Serbia into a state with a +population and area nearly equal to their own. After having long dreamed +of the day when they would themselves be arbiters of the destinies of +the nations of Southeastern Europe, they see their political supremacy +challenged by the new Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, behind +which they discern the power and influence of France. When the +dismemberment of the Austro-Hungarian Empire began, Rumania demanded and +expected the whole of the great rich province of the Banat, with the +Maros River for her northern and the Danube for her southern frontier. + +"But that would place our capital within range of the Rumanian +artillery," the Serbian prime minister is said to have exclaimed. + +"Then move your capital," the Rumanian premier responded drily. + +As a result of this controversy over the Banat the relations of the two +nations have been strained almost to the breaking-point. When I was in +the Banat in the autumn of 1919 the Rumanian and Serbian frontier +guards were glowering at each other like fighting terriers held in +leash, and the slightest untoward incident would have precipitated a +conflict! Although, by the terms of the Treaty of St. Germain, +Jugoslavia was awarded the western half of the Banat, Rumania is +prepared to take advantage of the first opportunity which presents +itself to take it away from her rival. When I was in Bucharest a cabinet +minister concluded a lengthy exposition of Rumania's position by +declaring: + +"Within the next two or three years, in all probability, there will be a +war between Jugoslavia and Italy over the Dalmatian question. The day +that Jugoslavia goes to war with Italy we will attack Jugoslavia and +seize the Banat. The Danube is Rumania's natural and logical frontier." + +This would seem to bear out the assertion that there exists a secret +alliance between Italy and Rumania, which, if true, would place +Jugoslavia in the unhappy position of a nut between the jaws of a +cracker. I have also been told on excellent authority that there is +likewise an "understanding" between Italy and Bulgaria that, should the +former become engaged in a war with the Jugoslavs, the latter will +attack the Serbs from the east and regain her lost provinces in +Macedonia. A pleasant prospect for Southeastern Europe, truly. + +While we were in Bucharest we received an invitation--"command" is the +correct word according to court usage--to visit the King and Queen of +Rumania at their Chateau of Pelesch, near Sinaia, in the Carpathians. It +is about a hundred miles by road from the capital to Sinaia and the +first half of the journey, which we made by motor, was over a road as +execrable as any we found in the Balkans. Upon reaching the foothills of +the Carpathians, however, the highway, which had been steadily growing +worse, suddenly took a turn for the better--due, no doubt, to the +invigorating qualities of the mountain atmosphere--and climbed +vigorously upward through wild gorges and splendid pine forests which +reminded me of the Adirondacks of Northern New York. Notwithstanding the +atrocious condition of the highway, which constantly threatened to +dislocate our joints as well as those of the car, and the choking, +blinding clouds of yellow dust, every change of figure on the +speedometer brought new and interesting scenes. For mile after mile the +road, straight as though marked out by a ruler, ran between fields of +wheat and corn as vast as those of our own West. In spite of the fact +that the Austro-Germans carried off all the animals and farming +implements they could lay their hands on, the agricultural prosperity of +Rumania is astounding. In 1916, for example, while involved in a +terribly destructive war, Rumania produced more wheat than Minnesota and +about twenty-five times as much corn as our three Pacific Coast states +combined. At frequent intervals we passed huge scarlet threshing +machines, most of them labeled "Made in U.S.A.," which were centers of +activity for hundreds of white-smocked peasants who were hauling in the +grain with ox-teams, feeding it into the voracious maws of the machines, +and piling the residue of straw into the largest stacks I have ever +seen. As we drew near the mountains the grain fields gave way to grazing +lands where great herds of cattle of various breeds--brindled milch +animals, massive cream-colored oxen, blue-gray buffalo with elephant +like hides and broad, curving horns, and gaunt steers that looked for +all the world like Texas longhorns--browsed amid the lush green grass. + +Though the villages of the Wallachian plain are few and far between, and +though it is no uncommon thing for a peasant to walk a dozen miles from +his home to the fields in which he works, the whole region seemed a-hum +with industry. The Rumanian peasant, like his fellows below the Danube, +is, as a rule, a good-natured, easy-going though easily excited, +reasonably honest and extremely industrious fellow who labors from dawn +to darkness in six days of the week and spends the seventh in harmless +village carouses, chiefly characterized by dancing, music and the cheap +native wine. Rumania is one of the few countries in Europe where the +peasants still dress like the pictures on the postcards. The men wear +curly-brimmed shovel hats of black felt, like those affected by English +curates, and loose shirts of white linen, whose tails, instead of being +tucked into the trousers, flap freely about their legs, giving them the +appearance of having responded to an alarm of fire without waiting to +finish dressing. On Sundays and holidays men and women alike appear in +garments covered with the gorgeous needlework for which Rumania is +famous, some of the women's dresses being so heavily embroidered in gold +and silver that from a little distance the wearers look as though they +were enveloped in chain mail. A considerable and undesirable element of +Rumania's population consists of gipsies, whence their name of Romany, +or Rumani. The Rumanian gipsies, who are nomads and vagrants like their +kinsmen in the United States, are generally lazy, quarrelsome, dishonest +and untrustworthy, supporting themselves by horse-trading and +cattle-stealing or by their flocks and herds. We stopped near one of +their picturesque encampments in order to repair a tire and I took a +picture of a young woman with a child in her arms, but when I declined +to pay her the five lei she demanded for the privilege, she flew at me +like an angry cat, screaming curses and maledictions. But her picture +was not worth five lei, as you can see for yourself. + +[Illustration: A PEASANT OF OLD SERBIA + +The Serbian peasant is simple, kindly, hospitable, honest, and generous, +and, though he could not be described ... as a hard worker, his wife +invariably is] + +[Illustration: THE GYPSY WHO DEMANDED FIVE LEI FOR THE PRIVILEGE OF +TAKING HER PICTURE] + +The Castle of Pelesch is just such a royal residence as Anthony Hope has +depicted in _The Prisoner of Zenda_. It gives the impression, at first +sight, of a confusion of turrets, gables, balconies, terraces, +parapets and fountains, but one quickly forgets its architectural +shortcomings in the beauty of its surroundings. It stands amid velvet +lawns and wonderful rose gardens in a sort of forest glade, from which +the pine-clothed slopes of the Carpathians rise steeply on every side, +the beam-and-plaster walls, the red-tiled roofs, and the blazing gardens +of the chateau forming a striking contrast to the austerity of the +mountains and the solemnity of the encircling forest. + +We had rather expected to be presented to Queen Marie with some +semblance of formality in one of the reception rooms of the chateau, but +she sent word by her lady-in-waiting that she would receive us in the +gardens. A few minutes later she came swinging toward us across a great +stretch of rolling lawn, a splendid figure of a woman, dressed in a +magnificent native costume of white and silver, a white scarf partially +concealing her masses of tawny hair, a long-bladed poniard in a silver +sheath hanging from her girdle. At her heels were a dozen Russian wolf +hounds, the gift, so she told me, of the Grand Duke Nicholas, the former +commander-in-chief of the Russian armies. I have seen many queens, but +I have never seen one who so completely meets the popular conception of +what a queen should look like as Marie of Rumania. Though in the middle +forties, her complexion is so faultless, her physique so superb, her +presence so commanding that, were she utterly unknown, she would still +be a center of attraction in any assemblage. Had she not been born to a +crown she would almost certainly have made a great name for herself, +probably as an actress. She paints exceptionally well and has written +several successful books and stories, thereby following the example of +her famous predecessor on the Rumanian throne, Queen Elizabeth, better +known as Carmen Sylva. She speaks English like an Englishwoman, as well +she may, for she is a granddaughter of Queen Victoria. She is also a +descendant of the Romanoffs, for one of her grandfathers was Alexander +III of Russia. In her manner she is more simple and democratic than many +American women that I know, her poise and simplicity being in striking +contrast to the manners of two of my countrywomen who had spent the +night preceding our arrival at the castle and who were manifestly much +impressed by this contact with the Lord's Anointed. When luncheon was +announced her second daughter, Princess Marie, had not put in an +appearance. But, instead of despatching the major domo to inform her +Royal Highness that the meal was served, the Queen stepped to the foot +of the great staircase and called, "Hurry up, Mignon. You're keeping us +all waiting," whereupon a voice replied from the upper regions, "All +right, mamma. I'll be down in a minute." Not much like the picture of +palace life that the novelists and the motion-picture playwrights give +us, is it? I might add that the Queen commonly refers to the plump young +princess as "Fatty," a nickname which she hardly deserves, however. In +her conversations with me the Queen was at times almost disconcertingly +frank. "Royalty is going out of fashion," she remarked on one occasion, +"but I like my job and I'm going to do everything I can to keep it." To +Mrs. Powell she said, "I have beauty, intelligence and executive +ability. I would be successful in life if I were not a queen." + +Unlike many persons who occupy exalted positions, she has a real sense +of humor. + +"Yesterday," she remarked, "was Nicholas's birthday," referring to her +second son, Prince Nicholas, who, since his elder brother, Prince Carol, +renounced his rights to the throne in order to marry the girl he loved, +has become the heir apparent. "At breakfast his father remarked, 'I'm +sorry, Nicholas, but I haven't any birthday present for you. The shops +in Bucharest were pretty well cleaned out by the Germans, you know, and +I didn't remember your birthday in time to send to Paris for a present.' +'Do you really wish to give Nicholas a present, Nando?' (the diminutive +of Ferdinand) I asked him. 'Of course I do,' the King answered, 'but +what is there to give him?' 'That's the easiest thing in the world,' I +replied. 'There is nothing that would give Nicholas so much pleasure as +an engraving of his dear father--on a thousand-franc note.'" + +Prince Nicholas, the future king of Rumania, who is being educated at +Eton, looks and acts like any normal American "prep" school boy. + +"Do the boys still wear top hats at Eton?" I asked him. + +"Yes, they do," he answered, "but it's a silly custom. And they cost two +guineas apiece. I leave it to you, Major, if two guineas isn't too much +for any hat." + +When I told him that in democratic America certain Fifth Avenue hatters +charge the equivalent of five guineas for a bowler he looked at me in +frank unbelief. "But then," he remarked, "all Americans are rich." + +Shortly before luncheon we were joined by King Ferdinand, a slenderly +built man, somewhat under medium height, with a grizzled beard, a genial +smile and merry, twinkling eyes. He wore the gray-green field uniform +and gold-laced kepi of a Rumanian general, the only thing about his +dress which suggested his exalted rank being the insignia of the Order +of Michael the Brave, which hung from his neck by a gold-and-purple +ribbon. Were you to see him in other clothes and other circumstances you +might well mistake him for an active and successful professional man. +King Ferdinand is the sort of man one enjoys chatting with in front of +an open fire over the cigars, for, in addition to being a shrewd judge +of men and events and having a remarkably exact knowledge of world +affairs, he possesses in an altogether exceptional degree the qualities +of tact, kindliness and humor. + +The King did not hesitate to express his indignation that the re-making +of the map of Europe should have been entrusted to men who possessed so +little first-hand knowledge of the nations whose boundaries they were +re-shaping. + +"A few days before the signing of the Treaty of St. Germain," he told +me, "Lloyd George sent for one of the experts attached to the Peace +Conference. + +"'Where is this Banat that Rumania and Serbia are quarreling over?' he +inquired. + +"'I will show you, sir,' the attache answered, unrolling a map of +southeastern Europe. For several minutes he explained in detail to the +British Premier the boundaries of the Banat and the conflicting +territorial claims to which its division had given rise. But when he +paused Lloyd George made no response. He was sound asleep! + +"Yet a little group of men," the King continued, "who know no more about +the nations whose destinies they are deciding than Lloyd George knew +about the Banat, have abrogated to themselves the right to cut up and +apportion territories as casually as though they were dividing +apple-tarts." + +[Illustration: KING FERDINAND TELLS MRS. POWELL HIS OPINION OF THE +FASHION IN WHICH THE PEACE CONFERENCE TREATED RUMANIA, WHILE QUEEN MARIE +LISTENS APPROVINGLY] + +The impression prevails in other countries that it is Queen Marie who is +really the head of the Rumanian royal family and that the King is little +more than a figurehead. With this estimate I do not agree. Rumania could +have no better spokesman than Queen Marie, whose talents, beauty, and +exceptional tact peculiarly fit her for the difficult role she has been +called upon to play. But the King, though he is by nature quiet and +retiring, is by no means lacking in political sagacity or the courage of +his convictions, being, I am convinced, as important a factor in the +government of his country as the limitations of its constitution permit. +Though none too well liked, I imagine, by the professional politicians, +who in Rumania, as in other countries, resent any attempt at +interference by the sovereign with their plans, the royal couple are +immensely popular with the masses of the people, Ferdinand frequently +being referred to as "the peasants' King." In the darkest days of the +war, when Rumania was overrun by the enemy and it seemed as though +Moldavia and the northern Dobrudja were all that could be saved to the +nation, King Ferdinand and Queen Marie, instead of escaping from their +country or asking the enemy for terms, retreated with the army to Jassy, +on the easternmost limits of the kingdom, where they underwent the +horrors of that terrible winter with their soldiers, the King serving +with the troops in the field and the Queen working in the hospitals as a +Red Cross nurse. Less than three years later, however, on November +twentieth, 1919, there assembled in Bucharest the first parliament of +Greater Rumania, attended by deputies from all those Rumanian +regions--Bessarabia, Transylvania, the Banat, the Bucovina and the +Dobrudja--which had been restored to the Rumanian motherland. At the +head of the chamber, in the great gilt chair of state, sat Ferdinand I, +who, from the fugitive ruler, shivering with his ragged soldiers in the +frozen marshes beside the Pruth, has become the sovereign of a country +having the sixth largest population in Europe and has taken his place in +Rumanian history beside Stephen the Great and Michael the Brave as +Ferdinand the Liberator. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +MAKING A NATION TO ORDER + + +From the young officers who wore on their shoulders the silver greyhound +of the American Courier Service we heard many discouraging tales of the +annoyances and discomforts for which we must be prepared in traveling +through Hungary, the Banat and Jugoslavia. But, to tell the truth, I did +not take these warnings very seriously, for I had observed that a +profoundly pessimistic attitude of mind characterized all of the +Americans or English whose duties had kept them in the Balkans for any +length of time. In Salonika this mental condition was referred to as +"the Balkan tap"--derived, no doubt, from the verb "to knock," as with a +hammer--and it usually implied that those suffering from the ailment had +outstayed their period of usefulness and should be sent home. + +Thrice weekly a train composed of an assortment of ramshackle and +dilapidated coaches, called by courtesy the Orient Express, which +maintained an average speed of fifteen miles an hour, left Bucharest for +Vincovce, a small junction town in the Banat, where it was supposed to +make connections with the south-bound Simplon Express from Paris to +Belgrade and with the north-bound express from Belgrade to Paris. The +Simplon Express likewise ran thrice weekly, so, if the connections were +missed at Vincovce, the passengers were compelled to spend at least two +days in a small Hungarian town which was notorious, even in that region, +for its discomforts and its dirt. All went well with us, however, the +train at one time attaining the dizzy speed of thirty miles an hour, +until, in a particularly desolate portion of the great Hungarian plain, +we came to an abrupt halt. When, after a half hour's wait, I descended +to ascertain the cause of the delay, I found the train crew surrounded +by a group of indignant and protesting passengers. + +"What's the trouble?" I inquired. + +"The engineer claims that he has run out of coal," some one answered. +"But he says that there is a coal depot three or four kilometers ahead +and that, if each first-class passenger will contribute fifty francs, +and each second-class passenger twenty francs, he figures that it will +enable him to buy just enough coal to reach Vincovce. Otherwise, he +says, we will probably miss both connections, which means that we must +stay in Vincovce for forty-eight hours. And if you had ever seen +Vincovce you would understand that such a prospect is anything but +alluring." + +While my fellow-passengers were noisily debating the question I strolled +ahead to take a look at the engine. As I had been led to expect from the +stories I had heard from the courier officers, the tender contained an +ample supply of coal--enough, it seemed to me, to haul the train to +Trieste. + +"This is nothing but a hold-up," I told the assembled passengers. "There +is plenty of coal in the tender. I am as anxious to make the connection +as any of you, but I will settle here and raise bananas, or whatever +they do raise in the Banat, before I will submit to this highwayman's +demands." + +Seeing that his bluff had been called, the engineer, favoring me with a +murderous glance, sullenly climbed into his cab and the train started, +only to stop again, however, a few miles further on, this time, the +engineer explained, because the engine had broken down. There being no +way of disputing this statement, it became a question of pay or +stay--and we stayed. The engineer did not get his tribute and we did not +get our train at Vincovce, where we spent twenty hot, hungry and +extremely disagreeable hours before the arrival of a local train bound +for Semlin, across the Danube from Belgrade. We completed our journey to +the Jugoslav capital in a fourth-class compartment into which were +already squeezed two Serbian soldiers, eight peasants, a crate of live +poultry and a dog, to say nothing of a multitude of small and undesired +occupants whose presence caused considerable annoyance to every one, +including the dog. We were glad when the train arrived at Semlin. + +Late in the summer of 1919, as a result of the reconstruction of the +railway bridges which had been blown up by the Bulgarians early in the +war, through service between Salonika and Belgrade was restored. As the +journey consumed from three to five days, however, the train stopping +for the night at stations where the hotel accommodation was of the most +impossible description, the American and British officials and +relief-workers who were compelled to make the journey (I never heard of +any one making it for pleasure) usually hired a freight car, which they +fitted up with army cots and a small cook-stove, thus traveling in +comparative comfort. + +Curiously enough, the only trains running on anything approaching a +schedule in the Balkans were those loaded with Swiss goods and belonging +to the Swiss Government. In crossing Southern Hungary we passed at least +half-a-dozen of them, they being readily distinguished by a Swiss flag +painted on each car. Each train, consisting of forty cars, was +accompanied by a Swiss officer and twenty infantrymen--finely set-up +fellows in _feldgrau_ with steel helmets modeled after the German +pattern. Had the trains not been thus guarded, I was told, the goods +would never have reached their destination and the cars, which are the +property of the Swiss State Railways, would never have been returned. It +is by such drastic methods as this that Switzerland, though hard hit by +the war, has kept the wheels of her industries turning and her currency +from serious depreciation. I have rarely seen more hopeless-looking +people than those congregated on the platforms of the little stations at +which we stopped in Hungary. The Rumanian armies had swept the country +clean of livestock and agricultural machinery, throwing thousands of +peasants out of work, and, owing to the appalling depreciation of the +kroner, which was worth less than a twentieth of its normal value, great +numbers of people who, under ordinary conditions, would have been +described as comfortably well off, found themselves with barely +sufficient resources to keep themselves from want. To add to their +discouragement, the greatest uncertainty prevailed as to Hungary's +future. In order to obtain an idea of just how familiar the inhabitants +of the rural districts were with political conditions, I asked four +intelligent-looking men in succession who was the ruler of Hungary and +what was its present form of government. The first opined that the +Archduke Joseph had been chosen king; another ventured the belief that +the country was a republic with Bela Kun as president; the third +asserted that Hungary had been annexed to Rumania; while the last man I +questioned said quite frankly that he didn't know who was running the +country, or what its form of government was, and that he didn't much +care. As a result of the decision of the Peace Conference which awarded +Transylvania to Rumania and divided the Banat between Rumania and +Jugoslavia, Hungary finds herself stripped of virtually all her forests, +all her mines, all her oil wells, and all of her manufactories save +those in Budapest, thus stripping the bankrupt and demoralized nation of +practically all of her resources save her wheat-fields. I talked with a +number of Americans and English who were conversant with Hungary's +internal condition and they agreed that it was doubtful if the country, +stripped of its richest territories, deprived of most of its resources, +and hemmed in by hostile and jealous peoples, could long exist as an +independent state. On several occasions I heard the opinion expressed +that sooner or later the Hungarians, in order to save themselves from +complete ruin, would ask to be admitted to the Jugoslav Confederation, +thereby obtaining for their products an outlet to the sea. In any +event, the Hungarians appear to have a more friendly feeling for their +Jugoslav neighbors than for the Rumanians, whom they charge with a +deliberate attempt to bring about their economic ruin. + +In spite of the prohibitive cost of labor and materials, we found that +the traces of the Austrian bombardment of Belgrade in 1914, which did +enormous damage to the Serbian capital, were rapidly being effaced and +that the city was fast resuming its pre-war appearance. The place was as +busy as a boom town in the oil country. The Grand Hotel, where the food +was the best and cheapest we found in the Balkans, was filled to the +doors with officers, politicians, members of parliament--for the +Skupshtina was in session--relief workers, commercial travelers and +concession seekers, and the huge Hotel Moskowa, built, I believe, with +Russian capital, was about to reopen. Architecturally, Belgrade shows +many traces of Muscovite influence, many of the more important buildings +having the ornate facades of pink, green and purple tiles, the colored +glass windows, and the gilded domes which are so characteristically +Russian. Though the main thoroughfare of the city, formerly called the +Terasia but now known as Milan Street, is admirably paved with wooden +blocks, the cobble pavements of the other streets have remained +unchanged since the days of Turkish rule, being so rough that it is +almost impossible to drive a motor car over them without imminent danger +of breaking the springs. Five minutes' walk from the center of the city, +on a promontory commanding a superb view of the Danube and its junction +with the Save, is a really charming park known as the Slopes of +Dreaming, where, on fine evenings, almost the entire population of the +capital appears to be promenading, the rather drab appearance of an +urban crowd being brightened by the gaily embroidered costumes of the +peasants and the silver-trimmed uniforms of the Serbian officers. + +The palace known as the Old Konak, where King Alexander and Queen Draga +were assassinated under peculiarly revolting circumstances on the night +of June 11, 1905, and from an upper window of which their mutilated +bodies were thrown into the garden, has been torn down, presumably +because of its unpleasant associations for the present dynasty, but +only a stone's throw away from the tragic spot is being erected a large +and ornate palace of gray stone, ornamented with numerous carvings, as a +residence for Prince-Regent Alexander, who, when I was there, was +occupying a modest one-story building on the opposite side of the +street. By far the most interesting building in Belgrade, however, is a +low, tile-roofed, white-walled wine-shop at the corner of Knes +Mihajelowa Uliza and Kolartsch Uliza, which is pointed out to visitors +as "the Cradle of the War," for in the low-ceilinged room on the second +floor is said to have been hatched the plot which resulted in the +assassination of the Austrian archducal couple at Serajevo in the spring +of 1914 and thereby precipitated Armageddon. + +[Illustration: THE WINE-SHOP WHICH IS POINTED OUT TO VISITORS AS "THE +CRADLE OF THE WAR"] + +In this connection, here is a story, told me by a Czechoslovak who had +served as an officer in the Serbian army during the war, which throws an +interesting sidelight on the tragedy of Serajevo. This officer's uncle, +a colonel in the Austrian army, had been, it seemed, equerry to the +Archduke Ferdinand, being in attendance on the Archduke at the Imperial +shooting-lodge in Bohemia when, early in the spring of 1914, the +German Emperor, accompanied by Admiral von Tirpitz, went there, +ostensibly for the shooting. The day after their arrival, according to +my informant's story, the Emperor and the Archduke went out with the +guns, leaving Admiral von Tirpitz at the lodge with the Archduchess. The +equerry, who was on duty in an anteroom, through a partly opened door +overheard the Admiral urging the Archduchess to obtain the consent of +her husband--with whom she was known to exert extraordinary +influence--to a union of Austria-Hungary with Germany upon the death of +Francis Joseph, who was then believed to be dying--a scheme which had +long been cherished by the Kaiser and the Pan-Germans. + +"Never will I lend my influence to such a plan!" the equerry heard the +Archduchess violently exclaim. "Never! Never! Never!" + +At the moment the Emperor and the Archduke, having returned from their +battue, entered the room, whereupon the Archduchess, her voice shrill +with indignation, poured out to her husband the story of von Tirpitz's +proposal. The Archduke, always noted for the violence of his temper, +promptly sided with his wife, angrily accusing the Kaiser of intriguing +behind his back against the independence of Austria. Ensued a violent +altercation between the ruler of Germany and the Austrian heir-apparent, +which ended in the Kaiser and his adviser abruptly terminating their +visit and departing the same evening for Berlin. + +For the truth of this story I do not vouch; I merely repeat it in the +words in which it was told to me by an officer whose veracity I have no +reason to question. There are many things which point to its +probability. Certain it is that the Archduke, who was a man of strong +character and passionately devoted to the best interests of the Dual +Monarchy, was the greatest obstacle to the Kaiser's scheme for the union +of the two empires under his rule, a scheme which, could it have been +realized, would have given Germany that highroad to the East and that +outlet to the Warm Water of which the Pan-Germans had long dreamed. The +assassination of the Archduke a few weeks later not only removed the +greatest stumbling-block to these schemes of Teutonic expansion, but it +further served the Kaiser's purpose by forcing Austria into war with +Serbia, thereby making Austria responsible, in the eyes of the world, +for launching the conflict which the Kaiser had planned. + +There has never been any conclusive proof, remember, that the Serbs were +responsible for Ferdinand's assasination. Not that there is anything in +their history which would lead one to believe that they would balk at +that method of removing an enemy, but, regarded from a political +standpoint, it would have been the most unintelligent and short-sighted +thing they could possibly have done. Nor are the Serbs and the +Pan-Germans the only ones to whom the crime might logically be traced. +Ferdinand, remember, had many enemies within the borders of his own +country. The Austrian anti-clericals hated and distrusted him because he +surrounded himself by Jesuit advisers and because he was believed to be +unduly under the influence of the Church of Rome. He was equally +unpopular with a large and powerful element of the Hungarians, who +foresaw a serious diminution of their influence in the affairs of the +monarchy should the Archduke succeed in realizing his dream of a Triple +Kingdom composed of Austria, Hungary and the Southern Slavs. + +Strange indeed are the changes which have been brought about by the +greatest conflict. Ferdinand, descendant of a long line of princes, +kings and emperors, has passed round that dark corner whence no man +returns, but his ambitious dreams of a triple kingdom which would +include the Southern Slavs have survived him, though in a somewhat +modified form. But he who sits on the throne of the new kingdom, and who +rules to-day over a great portion of the former dominions of the +Hapsburgs, instead of being a scion of the Imperial House of Austria, is +the great-grandson of a Serbian blacksmith. + +Owing to the ill-health and advanced age of King Peter of Serbia, his +second son, Alexander, is Prince-Regent of the Kingdom of the Serbs, +Croats and Slovenes. Prince Alexander, a slender, dark-complexioned man +with characteristically Slav features, was educated in Vienna and is +said to be an excellent soldier. He is extremely democratic, simple in +manner, a student, a hard worker, and devoted to the best interests of +his people. Though he is an accomplished horseman, a daring, even +reckless motorist, and an excellent shot, he is probably the loneliest +man in his kingdom, for he has no close associates of his own age, being +surrounded by elderly and serious-minded advisers; his aged father is in +a sanitarium, his scapegrace elder brother lives in Paris, and his +sister, a Russian grand duchess, makes her home on the Riviera. Though +old beyond his years and visibly burdened by the responsibilities of his +difficult position, he possesses a peculiarly winning manner and is +immensely popular with his soldiers, whose hardships he shared +throughout the war. Though he enjoys no great measure of popularity +among his new Croat and Slovene subjects, who might be expected to +regard any Serb ruler with a certain degree of jealousy and suspicion, +he has unquestionably won their profound respect. It is a difficult and +trying position which this young man occupies, and it is not made any +easier for him, I imagine, by the knowledge that, should he make a false +step, should he arouse the enmity of certain of the powerful factions +which surround him, the fate of his predecessor and namesake, King +Alexander, might quite conceivably befall him. + +I have been asked if, in my opinion, the peoples composing the new state +of Jugoslavia will stick together. If there could be effected a +confederation, modeled on that of Switzerland or the United States, in +which the component states would have equal representation, with the +executive power vested in a Federal Council, as in Switzerland, then I +believe that Jugoslavia would develop into a stable and prosperous +nation. But I very much doubt if the Croats, the Slovenes, the Bosnians +and the Montenegrins will willingly consent to a permanent arrangement +whereby the new nation is placed under a Serbian dynasty, no matter how +complete are the safeguards afforded by the constitution or how +conscientious and fair-minded the sovereign himself may be. No one +questions the ability or the honesty of purpose of Prince Alexander, but +the non-Serb elements feel, and not wholly without justification, that a +Serbian prince on the throne means Serbian politicians in places of +authority, thereby giving Serbia a disproportionate share of authority +in the government of Jugoslavia, as Prussia had in the government of the +German Empire. + +Already there have been manifestations of friction between the Serbs and +the Croats and between the Serbs and the Slovenes, to say nothing of the +open hostility which exists between the Serbs and certain Montenegrin +factions, to which I have alluded in a preceding chapter. It should be +remembered that the Croats and Slovenes, though members of the great +family of Southern Slavs, have by no means as much in common with their +Serb kinsmen as is generally believed. Croatia and Slovenia have both +educated and wealthy classes. Serbia, on the contrary, has a very small +educated class and practically no wealthy class, it being said that +there is not a millionaire in the country. Slovenia and Croatia each +have their aristocracies, with titles and estates and traditions; +Serbia's population is wholly composed of peasants, or of business and +professional men who come from peasant stock. As a result of the large +sums which were spent on public instruction in Croatia and Slovenia +under Austrian rule, only a comparatively small proportion of the +population is illiterate. But in Serbia public education is still in a +regrettably backward state, the latest figures available showing that +less than seventeen per cent. of the population can read and write, a +condition which, I doubt not, will rapidly improve with the +reestablishment of peace. Laibach (now known as Lubiana), the chief city +of Croatia, Agram, in Slovenia, and Serajevo, the capital of Bosnia, +have long been known as education centers, possessing a culture and +educational facilities of which far larger cities would have reason to +be proud. But Belgrade, having been, as it were, on the frontier of +European civilization, has been compelled to concentrate its energies +and its resources on commerce and the national defense. The attitude of +the people of Agram toward the less sophisticated and cultured Serbs +might be compared to that of an educated Bostonian toward an Arizona +ranchman--a worthy, industrious fellow, no doubt, but rather lacking in +culture and refinement. The truth of the matter is that the Croats and +the Slovenes, though only too glad to escape the Allies' wrath by +claiming kinship with the Serbs and taking refuge under the banner of +Jugoslavia, at heart consider themselves immeasurably superior to their +southern kinsmen, whose political dictation, now that the storm has +passed, they are beginning to resent. + +The first impression which the Serb makes upon a stranger is rarely a +favorable one. As an American diplomat, who is a sincere friend of +Serbia, remarked to me, "The Serb has neither manner nor manners. The +visitor always sees his worst side while his best side remains hidden. +He never puts his best foot forward." + +A certain sullen defiance of public opinion is, it has sometimes seemed +to me, a characteristic of the Serb. He gives one the impression of +constantly carrying a chip on his shoulder and daring any one to knock +it off. He is always eager for an argument, but, like so many +argumentative persons, it is almost impossible to convince him that he +is in the wrong. The slightest opposition often drives him into an +almost childlike rage and if things go against him he is apt to charge +his opponent with insincerity or prejudice. He can see things only one +way, _his_ way and he resents criticism so violently that it is seldom +wise to argue with him. + +Though the Serb, when afforded opportunities for education, usually +shows great brilliancy as a student and often climbs high in his chosen +profession, he all too frequently lacks the mental poise and the power +of restraining his passions which are the heritage of those peoples who +have been educated for generations. + +In Serbia, as in the other Balkan states, it is the peasants who form +the most substantial and likeable element of the population. The Serbian +peasant is simple, kindly, honest, and hospitable, and, though he could +not be described with strict truthfulness as a hard worker, his wife +invariably is. Although, like most primitive peoples, he is suspicious +of strangers, once he is assured that they are friends there is no +sacrifice that he will not make for their comfort, going cold and +hungry, if necessary, in order that they may have his blanket and his +food. He is one of the very best soldiers in Europe, somewhat careless +in dress, drill and discipline, perhaps, but a good shot, a tireless +marcher, inured to every form of hardship, and invariably cheerful and +uncomplaining. Perhaps it is his instinctive love of soldiering which +makes him so reluctant to lay down the rifle and take up the hoe. He +has fought three victorious wars in rapid succession and he has come to +believe that his metier is fighting. In this he is tacitly encouraged by +France, who sees in an armed and ready-to-fight-at-the-drop-of-the-hat +Jugoslavia a counterbalance to Italian ambitions in the Balkans. + +Though there are irresponsible elements in both Jugoslavia and Italy who +talk lightly of war, I am convinced that the great bulk of the +population in both countries realize that such a war would be the height +of shortsightedness and folly. Throughout the Fiume and Dalmatian crises +precipitated by d'Annunzio, Jugoslavia behaved with exemplary patience, +dignity and discretion. Let her future foreign relations continue to be +characterized by such self-control; let her turn her energies to +developing the vast territories to which she has so unexpectedly fallen +heir; let her take immediate steps toward inaugurating systems of +transportation, public instruction and sanitation; let her waste no time +in ridding herself of her jingo politicians and officers--let Jugoslavia +do these things and her future will take care of itself. She is a young +country, remember. Let us be charitable in judging her. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The New Frontiers of Freedom from the +Alps to the AEgean, by Edward Alexander Powell + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM *** + +***** This file should be named 17292.txt or 17292.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/7/2/9/17292/ + +Produced by Marilynda Fraser-Cunliffe, Taavi Kalju and the +Online Distributed Proofreaders Europe at +http://dp.rastko.net. 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